


These Are The Names

by FernWithy



Series: End of the World [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-07-30
Packaged: 2018-01-18 18:54:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 120,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1439146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernWithy/pseuds/FernWithy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Effie Trinket becomes the District 12 escort, and works with Haymitch through fourteen years before his last tributes come along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  banner by ETNRL4L

**Part One: Temperance**

  
  
**Chapter One**  
"Euphemia Trinket?"  
  
"Yes," I say, and hand him my credentials. I am trying very hard not to notice the room beyond the front door, but the smell makes it difficult. Caesar Flickerman warned me that Haymitch Abernathy does his best to be off-putting, and he is succeeding admirably. He's turned a fine house in Victors' Village into something that looks like a garbage pit and smells like an abattoir. He doesn't do much better with his personal hygiene. I know he's a good looking man. I saw him before he let himself go, and I've helped clean him up in the Capitol. But here at home, he greets me the day before the reaping unshaven, filthy, and wearing long underwear that looks like it might be able to walk off on its own. Judging by the smell, he's seen more of the inside of a bottle than the inside of his shower, and his hair is sticking up in greasy black clumps. He seems to have made a passing attempt at shaving in the recent past, but it's uneven, and there's a large spot along his jawline that was missed entirely.  
  
I watched his Games on the way out here. He looks better than he did when he was holding his spilling guts in… but it's a pretty close thing.  
  
He squints at my credentials. "You're the hair girl, right?"  
  
"I was on the girl's prep team, yes. But -- "  
  
"What are you, fifteen years old?"  
  
"I'll be eighteen next month. I know I'm young, but --"  
  
"This says you're my escort. Glass on to bigger and better things?"  
  
"He was transferred to District Four."  
  
"Four?" He frowns. "Why Four?"  
  
"I don't know. They just called me in to say I needed to replace him."  
  
He looks at me for a long, long time. Usually, when men do that, I have some idea what they're thinking about, but he doesn't have that look about him. "You're the one who cleaned me up last year. Before Glass stuck me on television."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"And they didn't fire you for it?"  
  
"No. That's why Mr. Flickerman promoted me. He said I did what I was supposed to do. That the escort is there to _help_ the mentor. I'm here to help you." In fact, he told me that he'd been trying to get rid of Mr. Abernathy's old escort, Ausonius Glass, for years, and that it was Glass's _attempt_ to have me fired that led to the final blow-out, but I decide that Mr. Abernathy doesn't need to know about that. It's all settled now, though by the sound of it, Mr. Flickerman was annoyed that he still couldn't just fire Glass. I don't know why. I can't imagine anyone doing less of what he was supposed to do.  
  
"Here to help," Mr. Abernathy muses. "That'd be a first. What are you really supposed to do, Euphemia? I know Caesar's got an agenda, but I don't know what it is." He tips my folder at me. "Says here, you did six years in Capitol Dreams before you joined my preps. And you quit school?"  
  
"I tested out," I say. It's not his business that I just couldn't stay there any more, not after the… the thing they did with my wig. Not after they posted pictures of it all over the walls, with me crying and bloodied. That's not anyone's business but mine. "I did graduate, you know. I have my credentials. Well, _you_ have them at the moment."  
  
He looks at my file again. "Credentials in hair and fashion."  
  
"Yes. And I took a math class once, even though it wasn't required." There's no response to this. I lower my eyes. "Well, Mr. Flickerman said you might want to know that."  
  
"Did you take any history? Literature?"  
  
"Those are more of college school sorts of classes. I was in practical school. We take things we'll be able to use in a job."  
  
He sighs. "That sounds familiar enough. I had to take mine safety." He shakes his head. "Well, I'd invite you in to say hello, but you look like you're about to faint out on the porch. Gimme a second. Want a drink?"  
  
"No. Thank you."  
  
"Your call." He shuts the door, leaving me on his porch, which should be a pleasant enough space, but somehow isn't. I sit down on a delicate ornamental bench that I am reasonably certain was never purchased by the man behind the door.  
  
It's not that he has his mess out here, or even the faint smell that comes through from a slightly open window. It's certainly not the view, which is quite pretty. District Twelve is full of trees and dense grasses, and the green in the Village is beautifully kept.  
  
I think it's just those eleven other houses, the empty ones, staring back with their blank window eyes. Maybe I'd drink, too, if they were staring at me all year.  
  
I shake it off. Medusa -- the boys' hairstylist -- warned me that districts could be a little spooky sometimes. They seem too quiet, she told me. Things are as still as the grave. "That's why the district kids are so strange," she said. "It's like they're on ice all the time, and never get a chance to move around. There's nothing to stimulate the mind, and they just sort of… _stew_ out there. It must drive the smart ones crazy. That's probably why they rebelled. Here in the Capitol, we know how to keep people busy."  
  
I suppose this is true. In the Capitol, I'm never bored. I don't have a lot of friends, but there's always a party to go to, or a club, or an amusement complex. If I start to get bored, I can go out and do anything I want. I was on the carousel at the lakeside when I got the call to come to Games headquarters three days ago. After that, there was a crazy shopping binge -- escorts have to have better clothes than preps, and I got a very nice stipend for it -- and then packing and workshops about what I'm supposed to do. Now, everything has just… _stopped._  
  
Even the train ride out here was maddening. It was comfortable, of course -- they spare no expense for the tributes -- but being trapped in the same place for so many hours was maddening. I was glad for the television, and a small game room they have for the wardrobe staff, and a good selection of magazines… but none of those are meant to take as much time as there is to dispose of. One of the District Six transportation staffers suggested that I look out the windows, but I don't know what I was supposed to be looking for. All I saw was a big expanse of grayish land so flat that it looked like someone took an iron to it. I was glad when we started to approach District Twelve. At least the mountains were something different to see.  
  
The door behind me opens. Mr. Abernathy has put on clothes -- expensive, high-quality ones that he somehow manages to make look like rags -- and possibly even run a washcloth over himself. He sits down beside me, but doesn't look at me. "So they sent you to pull the names. Some job you have here, Euphemia."  
  
"They sent me to take care of the tributes."  
  
"They all die, you know. They don't come back. You're calling them to die." I don't answer. He finally looks at me. "What, no speech about how death in the Games is noble? How they're glorifying their lives by dying bravely? Isn't that the line from Capitol Dreams?"  
  
I _was_ going to say something like that, but I don't. Looking at all the houses, the houses looking back at me, I guess it doesn't seem all that noble. But it's a _chance_.  
  
And I have to be positive. That was the one thing Caesar insisted on. He said that they'd take me away if I let it get under my skin. I'm not sure where he thinks they'd take me. Apparently, the whole reason they let him hire me was that my parents put me in Capitol Dreams when I was nine, which means I've had a lot of experience with the Games.  
  
I decide to leave it alone. Before I came to work for District Twelve last year, Miss Meadowbrook at Capitol Dreams warned me that Mr. Abernathy would try to "push my buttons." She used to date him, and still seems quite fond of him, though she laughs about how very seriously he takes everything. ("He actually used the word 'love' on our first date," she told me, rolling her eyes. "Before we even tried each other out. And don't get him started on the Games.")  
  
"Nothing?" he asks me. "No comments?"  
  
I shrug.  
  
He takes a drink. "So, unless I missed a day, the reapings aren't until tomorrow. What are you doing here? I know they schedule the trains especially for the Games, so it’s not the only time you could catch one."  
  
"I don't know anything about District Twelve," I say. "I thought I should find out."  
  
He raises his eyebrows. "Wow. You've been here five minutes, and you're already a better escort than Glass. What do you want to know?"  
  
"Could you show me around?"  
  
"In _that_ get-up?" he asks.  
  
"What's wrong with me?"  
  
"Nothing, if you're riding around the Capitol. In District Twelve? It's not going to work. And if you think you're going to make friends around here, you may as well give that up. All you'll ever be in District Twelve is the one who calls the names."  
  
I look down. "I'd like to _try_ , Mr. Abernathy."  
  
He's quiet for a long time, then he finally says, "I believe you. And it's Haymitch. I think once you've seen me in my underwear, we're on a first name basis. And while we're on names, what do they really call you?"  
  
"Euphemia."  
  
"No, they don't. What do your friends call you?"  
  
"I've asked the people I know to call me Euphemia."  
  
He wrinkles his nose. "What about your parents?"  
  
"They used to call me 'Effie,'" I admit.  
  
"See? That's a real girl's name."  
  
"It's a _little_ girl's name."  
  
"I think a grown-up lady could wear it well enough, and it's a whole lot easier to say."  
  
"Fine. You can call me Effie. But not to other people, all right?"  
  
He shakes his head in disbelief and says, "If that's what you want. Where do you mean to stay tonight?"  
  
"I have a room at the inn. I don't really know where it is."  
  
"I do." He sighs and stands up. "Come on. It's way across town from here, so I hope those heels don't hurt you much."  
  
"Do you have a car?"  
  
"I couldn't drive it if I did." He sways a little and sits back down. "And probably shouldn't. Most people in District Twelve walk places. Let's give it ten minutes. The guy who does the gardens has a little cart. Maybe he can take you in."  
  
We end up waiting a little more than an hour. I prod him into telling me at least a little bit about the district, though after a little while, he stops talking. I get more from the gardener, Merle Undersee, in the ten minute trip across town to the inn. Undersee is much more positive about the town. He points out the little shops, and tells me about his wife and his little baby girl. He talks about the coal production issues, and where the prettiest flowers grow.  
  
"And don't let Haymitch fool you," he says as we pull up to the inn. "He grumps about the place a lot, but he's as much District Twelve as the rest of us. And believe me when I tell you, he's glad to have _you_ here. He hates Ausonius Glass like poison."  
  
"He didn't seem glad."  
  
"He was still sitting out on the porch with you. He asked me to take you back here. Most people, he'd just leave to sink or swim. He was being downright sociable to you, by his standards." Undersee grins. "Don't worry too much. He's got an edge on him, but he takes people like they are -- not like he guesses they're going to be -- and as long as you're decent to him, he'll be decent to you."  
  
"Thank you." I climb off the cart.  
  
"You enjoy your stay. I can't say anyone here's going to enjoy it, with the reaping tomorrow, but that's nothing personal. You try the ham and peas at the inn. I hear it's great. And you might want to drop by Cartwright's for some walking shoes if you mean to look around. And have some strawberry pie from Mellark's. They're in season and fresh."  
  
"Thank you again."  
  
"Nice to meet you, Effie," he says, and I realize for the first time that I gave him the wrong name. After listening to Haymitch call me Effie for a while, I guess I just had it on the brain. I'll have to remember the right one when I meet the mayor tomorrow.  
  
I watch him pull away, and go inside. The young woman minding the counter hands me a key -- an actual old metal key, the sort of thing that might open a fairy tale gate -- and mutters some kind of a welcome. I go upstairs and put my bag on the four-poster bed. The room here is immaculate, and it looks out on the pretty town square, where they're already setting up the stage for tomorrow. The crew came up with me, and I guess they're setting things up, too, though I don't see them.  
  
I don't change my shoes. I already walked to Victors' Village from the train station in these, and they're actually quite comfortable. I can't quite see myself wearing the flat-foot boots that I see the women in the square wearing.  
  
I do change clothes into something a little less conspicuous -- a blue skirt and a pink top -- and I wash off some of my makeup. I don't really have a wig that would pass for local, and obviously, going without isn't on the menu. Now that I have money, after the Games, I'll get the scars on my scalp removed, but at the moment, my head looks like a jigsaw puzzle.  
  
 _(Let's have a look at her! Grab her! Hold her down! Let's see what's under Effie's wig!)_  
  
I shudder, and make myself not think about it. I've gotten good at that in the past year. But usually, I have a few televisions to turn on, or a party to go to. Anything but thinking about the way the wig pins tore out pieces of my scalp when they yanked it off. About the way they kept me pinned down, and grabbed my shirt and tore it. About what might have happened if the teachers hadn't come when they did. About coming in the next day and finding the pictures projected _everywhere_.  
  
"Stop it," I tell myself firmly. I know better than to dwell on negatives.  
  
There's no television in my room, so I go downstairs to the lounge to watch the preliminary Games coverage. There's even a little special on me.  
  
I walk around the square a little bit after. No one seems inclined to talk to me. At the bakery, I get a slice of strawberry pie, which really is heavenly, though I don't miss the fact that the baker shoos his little children into the back when I come in. He's nice enough otherwise. I start to go down a side street, but a gray-eyed miner says, "Ma'am, that's not a place you want to head for. Let me walk you back to wherever you belong."  
  
He doesn't talk to me all the way back to the inn.  
  
I think I'll just come for reaping day next year.  
  
There is no air conditioning here, and I rest uncomfortably with the window open. It's screened, but I still wonder what sorts of things might get through it. Something out there is making a chirping noise. Under it, I hear rough men arguing in the streets.  
  
I don't sleep until very late, and I'm glad I arranged for someone to wake me. The reaping isn't until two, and there's a lot to do. I wasn't allowed to bring a prep team, so I have to make myself up (luckily, I have experience in this), and I have to choose the right outfit, and I have to touch base with all of the technical crew. There's a long checklist of things to make sure of. Mr. Flickerman promised that I'd have it down in no time, but I can't imagine keeping all of this straight in my head.  
  
At one, I go to the mayor's house and practice introducing myself as "Euphemia Trinket," only to be greeted by a cheerful, "Hello, Effie!"  
  
I blink. "Mr. Undersee? I thought you were -- "  
  
"Oh, I just haven't found anyone else to take over grounds keeping yet. They just appointed me a month ago. Come in. Meet my wife…"  
  
So, before I can correct my name, I'm led deep into the mayor's house, to a little nursery where a thin woman with light brown hair is rocking a swaddled baby. Something about her seems very familiar, but I can't place it for the life of me. Her name is Kay. The baby's name is Madge.  
  
"You won't call her, will you?" Kay asks dully. "They called my sister. Maysilee Donner."  
  
That name, I remember. Haymitch's ally. His true love, if you ask the Games fans, though Miss Meadowbrook says it's not true, and he really loved some other girl. I remember watching them on television, and on video on the way out here, huddled under a blanket together. I remember being very upset when she died. I got in some trouble for how upset I was. That was when my parents got me into Capitol Dreams, so that I wouldn't be so upset anymore.  
  
That must be why Mrs. Undersee seems familiar, though the tired, beaten looking woman in the rocking chair doesn't have much in common with the feisty tribute I remember.  
  
I can't promise never to call the baby's name. I don't have any control over what will come out of the reaping balls. But I do tell her that Madge is beautiful and sweet, and that's very true.  
  
Kay Undersee grabs my arm as I start to leave. "Please never say her name again. Please."  
  
I nod.  
  
When I get out to the platform, Merle Undersee is testing the sound system, and Haymitch is trying to get up the stairs, without any noticeable success. I go down and help him up to the stage. He's clean and dressed properly, at least. I'll have to get him de-toxed on the train.  
  
I spend most of the introduction wringing my hands. I'll be on national television, live, and I'm suddenly not even sure that my wig is on straight. If I start patting at it, it will be worse.  
  
Finally, the mayor says, "And now, may I introduce, with great pleasure, our new escort, Effie Trinket!"  
  
I stand up. It's too late to correct him now. Maybe next year.  
  
I pull out the card where my speech is written. Mr. Flickerman _also_ says that I'll have this down pat soon, but I don't believe him. I feel like the air is being sucked out of my lungs. The town's children are gathered in their roped off areas by age, dressed up, but looking frightened and sullen.  
  
 _They all die, you know._  
  
The reaping balls seem very large beside me. They're filled with innocuous looking slips of paper.  
  
 _They don't come back. You're calling them to die._  
  
But if I stumble here, I'll be fired for sure, and what good would it do, anyway? At least it's only two, a lot fewer than would be dead in a war, and one of them has a chance to live in one of those big houses around the Victors' green.  
  
I smile. "Welcome," I say, looking down at my card. "Welcome to the Fifty-ninth annual Hunger Games! It's time to choose this year's representatives from District Twelve. May the odds be ever in your favor!" There is no applause at the Games motto. They always show applause on television. It must be edited in later. I smile as widely as I can and go to the girls' reaping ball. My hand is shaking, and I force it to stop. "Ladies first!"  
  
I draw out the first of the names I'll call -- Babra Kennedy. A thin blond girl of fifteen comes up onto the stage. She has a spray of little freckles on her nose, and as I watch, I see a tear cling to her eyelashes. I put my card in my pocket and take her hand. I hold it while I reach for the boy's name. Trillium Morrison. He's about my age, a huge, broad-shouldered boy with black hair and striking gray eyes. His hand is covered with cold sweat when I take it, but I don't let go.  
  
"Your tributes from District Twelve!" I announce. "Babra Kennedy and Trillium Morrison!"  
  
There is dutiful applause now.  
  
We lead the children inside. Trillium manages a smile in my direction. Babra won't let go of my hand until I get her settled in the shabby little parlor where her family will visit her. I finally let go when she's on the couch, but she grabs at me again.  
  
"Please, stay!"  
  
"Your family will be here soon," I tell her. "You'll want to be strong for them."  
  
"Please don't leave me alone!"  
  
I'm not supposed to be here with the families. That's definitely not on my list of duties. I'm supposed to be by Haymitch's side, helping him get ready.  
  
I say, "Okay," and I stay until Babra's family comes. They hold her, and glare at me.  
  
I go downstairs to the main hall, where Haymitch is sitting in the shadows under the stairs.  
  
"I'm sorry," I say. "I know I should have been here right away, but the girl -- "  
  
"That's where you belong," he says. He leans forward into the light, the line of the stair-shadow now cutting diagonally down over his ear. "They outrank me. You did what you were supposed to do."  
  
"Do you want me to go back, in case she needs me after her family leaves?"  
  
"Let it be for now. She seems willing to call if she needs you. I don't know how she ended up in there. She's town, and her parents haven't done anything. Why did you call her?"  
  
"Because her name was on the slip pulled."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes. I promise, I wasn't even _asked_ to do anything else."  
  
"No. No, I guess not. Nothing's happening this year."  
  
I sigh. The other escorts have told me what the district people believe, about punitive reapings. None of the ones I talked to have ever been asked to skew the drawing either, but, looking at Haymitch, I have a feeling nothing I say will change his mind, anyway. "Do _you_ need anything?" I ask him. "Something to help you…"  
  
"…sober up?" He shakes his head. "No. That thing on the stairs was the last of it. Just head-spins. I didn't drink enough last night. It's already wearing off."  
  
"Maybe you should consider being sober for the reaping."  
  
"I consider it every year," he says. "Very briefly."  
  
"They'll need you in better shape -- "  
  
"I _always_ sober up in the Capitol, at least until" -- he smiles bitterly -- "until my duties have been discharged."  
  
The door opens. I expect it to be one of the families, looking for Haymitch. I imagine that they all want to talk to the mentor.  
  
But it's a Games Security officer.  
  
"Haymitch Abernathy," she says.  
  
He looks up dully. "Yeah?"  
  
"You'll accompany me to the train now, and report for questioning."  
  
"Not until I know the families don't need me."  
  
The officer drags him up rudely, ignoring my protest. "The order was to bring you immediately."  
  
"What for?"  
  
"For questioning in the murder of Ausonius Glass."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Haymitch is being questioned, Effie has to take a lot of the responsibility for the tributes on herself.

"Trill Morrison," the boy says, extending his hand and giving me what I think he imagines as a cocky smile.  
  
I shake his hand. "Hello, Trill, it's nice to meet you."  
  
"And you. You're a lot prettier than the last escort."  
  
I bite my tongue. The Peacekeepers have forbidden me to discuss Glass's death -- they don't intend to announce it until the suspect is in custody; until then, they'll say he's "retired" -- but it's an awkward thing to think about. I decide not to think about it. "Thank you very much, Trill."  
  
"How can you flirt with her?" Babra asks.  
  
"Look at her. She's pretty."  
  
"How can you flirt with _anyone_ when we're on our way to die?"  
  
"Because I’m not going to have many more chances?"   
  
I shake my head. "This won't do at _all_. You both have to stop thinking like that. Mr. Abernathy and I will do everything we can for both of you."  
  
"Where is he?" Trill asks.  
  
"He had to talk to some people from the Games," I tell him. "He'll be there for you, don't worry -- "  
  
"In case we need a drink?"  
  
"He'll sober up for you," I say. I hope that this is true. He says it's true, and that's all I have to go on. I barely saw him last year before he lost his tributes. Babra and Trill are looking at me hungrily, seeking some kind of structure. I'd guessed that Haymitch would be talking to them most of the way. I have a lot of hours to fill. "Meanwhile," I try, "why don't we have supper and watch the rest of the reapings?"  
  
"Are they still mandatory viewing even though we have to _be_ there?" Babra asks.  
  
"I'm not sure, but it might be a good idea."   
  
"Know who we're up against," Trill says. "Right. I think I'd feel better."  
  
I guess they both know as well as I do that we have a lot of hours to fill, because there are only a few protests. I get them to their private quarters to change out of their District clothes and into something a little more appropriate, then lead them to the dining car, where they've set out a nice luncheon. Babra seems to know her way around the silverware, but Trill just starts grabbing at things with his fingers. I'm going to have to do something about that -- it will disgust any sponsor who happens to watch candid footage -- but I decide to wait until after we watch the reapings.  
  
Districts One and Two are the usual routine of volunteers and counter-volunteers. According to the manual Caesar gave me, there's a fairly complex procedure to follow, but he said that, in Twelve, I wasn't likely to see much use of it, so I didn't read it very carefully. I've never been able to pick it up from the airings, which only show a few people shouting "I volunteer," followed by one being brought up on stage. I know it's not that short -- the District One reaping actually begins quite early in the morning, and it's only the final stage that's shown live. In District Three, I see their victors, Beetee and Wiress, looking nervously at a pair of skinny children, both frightened, that Vitranio has just called up. In District Four, no mention is made of the fact that the mayor has called the tributes. No mention of Glass is made at all, though I can see a lot more Peacekeepers in the frame than I am used to seeing.  
  
Last year's victor from District Five, Tanager Lowe, looks nervous in her first year as mentor, and the two District Six mentors are quite clearly under the influence of something, even moreso than Haymitch. The children are starting to look alike. By the time we get to District Twelve, most of the country will no longer be paying attention. We'll have to do something to catch their eyes again at the parade.  
  
Trill and Babra watch all of it, wide-eyed. She repeats the names several times after each reaping. He's pale, but seems to be trying to work it out. By the time it's over, they've made their way through half the food, and are both very quiet. We sit uncomfortably in the silence for a while, then, because someone has to say something, I say, "Now, the cameras will be on you all the time, so we should learn to eat properly -- "  
  
"Where's Haymitch?" Trill asks. "Shouldn't we be learning about strategy? What does he have to talk to them about for so long?"  
  
"I'm not sure. But what I'm talking about is strategy, too -- "  
  
"Oh, right, I'm sure that knowing which of these forks I'm supposed to use is going to keep me alive," Babra says.  
  
"Maybe which _knife_ ," Trill puts in. "Knives will be more useful than forks."  
  
"I can't stab someone!"  
  
"You better learn, or you're going to end up dead!"  
  
"I'm going to end up dead, anyway! Did you see that boy from Two? He looks like he could break me in half!"  
  
I stand up. "That's enough," I try, forcing a smile. "Now, I know you're nervous, but Haymitch will help you later, and I'm trying to help you now, with sponsors."  
  
"Why would sponsors care about that?" Trill asks.  
  
"People are moved to help people who… who know the rules." I sigh. "Let's try the basics, at least…"  
  
It takes a while, but I finally get them to commit to learning how to at least avoid outright offense at the table. I even catch Babra having a little bit of fun trying to use a fish knife, though Trill -- like boys everywhere, I suppose -- makes a bit too much of a game of ripping out the bones. At one point, when the sun is setting bright red outside the train windows, I look up and see Haymitch standing at the door, but he's shooed past by a couple of security officers. The tributes don't notice it.  
  
He still hasn't joined us when the schedule suggests the tributes should try to get some sleep -- they have a big day tomorrow -- so I bundle them off on my own. Babra seems much calmer now, and Trill is back to flirting with me. He asks if I'll come and tuck him in. I tell him I think he can handle that on his own.  
  
Once they're in bed, I go up the train, looking for Haymitch. I find him in a room in the security area, but they're still questioning him. I don't know what they possibly think he could know. Ausonius Glass was murdered in District Four, and they know as well as I do that Haymitch was in District Twelve the whole time. If they don't, they can ask me; I can confirm that.  
  
But they don't.   
  
A guard spots me by the door and escorts me back to my quarters.  
  
I can't sleep. At home, I'd take a pill to help, but I don't want to chance being fuzzy right now.  
  
I've been lying awake for what seems forever -- though the clock tells me that it's only been fifty-three minutes -- when there's a knock at the door. There's no time to properly put on a wig, so I just grab a scarf to tie over my scars, pull on a robe, and go to the door of my sleeping car.  
  
Haymitch is in the hall outside. He's dead sober, and it looks like he's been in a fight. His lip is swollen, and he has scabs on his knuckles. "You doing all right?" he asks me. "Are _they_?"  
  
"They're nervous, of course," I tell him. "They want to talk to you."  
  
"They promise I'll be able to mentor. But maybe not tomorrow. They only let me out now because _they_ wanted to sleep." He sits down on a little plush bench against the wall. "Just try and keep them calmed down. Etiquette or something, I guess."  
  
"We did etiquette most of the way. I can keep that up tomorrow, and get them ready for the parade."  
  
"What are they wearing?"  
  
"I don't know. Glass worked it out with Lepidus and Atilia before he was transferred."  
  
"Great. He just keeps on giving."  
  
I sit down beside him. "Why are they questioning you? They have to know that you couldn't have done it."  
  
"Of course they do. He was way down in District Four. It happened yesterday. I doubt even they could figure out a way that I could have a conversation with you and be down on the coast three hours later, with no trains running."  
  
"Then why? And why did they hit you?"  
  
He shrugs. "My fault. I'm an idiot. I threw the first punch." He sighs. He looks a lot older than twenty-five at the moment. "They're trying to say it was Gia. Pelagia Pepper, my first escort. That she put a trident through him, then signed her name on the body. Why would she do anything that stupid?"  
  
"Maybe so they wouldn't blame anyone else?" I suggest. "I heard she did kill a Peacekeeper once."  
  
"That was in self-defense. Or, well, I guess it was. It was the night she escaped. Anyway, Snow's always figured I know where she went. I _don't_. She's not that dumb."  
  
"What if she's in Four and Glass recognized her? She would have spent time with him as an escort -- Twelve and Seven were allies once…"  
  
His glare stops me. I have heard things about Haymitch and his first escort. Medusa told me that they aren't true things, but the look on his face makes them _look_ true.  
  
"Sorry," I say.  
  
"It's okay. You didn't know her." He looks miserably across the hall. "They said if I don't tell them what I don't know, they'll do a genetic dragnet on all the women in District Four."  
  
"That sounds unpleasant."  
  
"Unpleasant. You have a knack for understatement, Euphemia."  
  
He doesn't say anything for a few minutes, and I can't think of anything to say. I consider the wisdom of putting a comforting hand on his shoulder, but I decide against it.  
  
"They're not going to find her, anyway," he says out of the blue.  
  
"If they test every woman…"  
  
"You spend too much time with the Gamemakers. They always think they're the smartest guys in the room, and all of their little playthings are too dumb to see their tricks. But Gia's not."  
  
"She's not in District Four?"  
  
"Would _you_ be? Think about it -- they know she got off the train near District Four. They can do a genetic dragnet if it suits them. So would you go to the most likely place it's possible to be, and then sign your name to a murder?" He snorts. "I bet Snow had it done himself. He's probably tired of cleaning up after his pet fanatic."  
  
I look around. "You shouldn't talk like that, Haymitch. Someone could hear."  
  
He laughs. "Right. I'm sure they'd all be real shocked."  
  
"You _can't_ talk like that," I repeat. I feel a tight band coming around my chest, squeezing at my heart. "You just can't. It's not allowed."  
  
He looks at me for a long time, then sighs. "Yeah. I guess I could get you in trouble if I talk sedition to you. And I need you not in trouble." He looks up at the ceiling. "You heard all that, right? She's a good little Capitol Dreamer."  
  
"You really don't like Capitol Dreams, do you?"  
  
"I really don't. Why do you?"  
  
"Well… they're nice there," I say. "They aren't always nice anywhere else. Sometimes in school, the other children were… unkind."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
I nod. "We were in a little debt trouble. I never had nice things. I had to save up for everything I did have. It was always second-rate."  
  
"And they let you have nice things at Capitol Dreams."  
  
"Sometimes. Mostly, they just helped me make what I did have look good, and they never…" I block out the image of the boys in the school hallway, yanking at my wig. I'd saved for weeks for it, to try and look like the rich girls. But they knew what I really was.  
  
Haymitch looks at me with surprising keenness. "School was bad for you," he says.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"That's why you really tested out." I nod. He rolls his eyes. "I actually know that song. Didn't know they sang it in the Capitol. Guess you could say that I tested out, too." He grins, and the extra years I noticed before seem to fade a little bit. He looks like the handsome boy who won nine years ago, albeit a little thick through the middle these days.  
  
"I guess I won't complain about how hard my fashion final was."  
  
"It'll probably be more useful to you than what I tested out on." He rubs his head. "They're going to take me back to questioning as soon as we get to the Capitol tomorrow," he says. "In Peacekeeper headquarters. I told them I need to get back to train my tributes. They didn't seem to care. I'll need you to keep an eye on them through the parade. If Glass had anything too crazy planned with Lepidus, try to get it toned down."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"And you may need to take some sponsor meetings for me, depending on how long they keep me. I usually have lunch with the Daughters of the Founding during prep. They've been good to Twelve."  
  
"I know the Daughters. I worked with them on a monument clean-up. I can do that."  
  
"I'm sorry you're getting this thrown at you your first year."  
  
"I'll handle it."  
  
He smiles. "Remind me to thank Caesar."  
  
"I'll put it on your schedule."  
  
This gets a quiet laugh. "Yeah, you better. I'll forget otherwise. I always forget stuff like that. My mother would be very annoyed."  
  
"I've got your back."  
  
He offers his hand. "Allies?"  
  
The word -- one I've only heard on television, among tributes -- surprises me. I shake his hand. "Sure. Allies."  
  
"Done."  
  
I hold onto his hand a second longer than I should, and he doesn't make me let go, though I can tell he's uncomfortable. I pull my hand away. "In my capacity as ally -- do you want to know about the other reapings?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess I better. Let's watch them."  
  
So I go back to the dining car, this time with Haymitch, and we watch the reapings again. I half expect him to take notes, but he doesn't. He pays very close attention to the reaping in Four (a girl named Keeva Magreary and a boy named Harris Greaves, though I have the impression it's not the tributes he's watching so carefully), and gets increasingly agitated as the roster goes through. He's closed off and grumpy again by the time it's over. I go back to bed.  
  
By the time I get up, he's already got Trill and Babra at breakfast, and is trying to get through as much as he can.  
  
"Shouldn't we be learning to use knives?" Trill asks as I come in. "You know… to fight with?"  
  
"You'll have physical training for that. And you can't guarantee that you'll _get_ any special kind of weapon. I don't want you going near the Cornucopia --"  
  
"I can handle the fight," Trill says.  
  
"No, you can't. I'll get you what I can. But don't get into that fight."  
  
"Where will we get weapons, though?" Babra asks. "If we can't get weapons there, then they'll just chase us down and kill us."  
  
"Get out of there while they're too busy killing each other."  
  
Trill frowns. "I'm not going to run away. You managed to get through the Cornucopia. You got away with a big bag."  
  
"I was _lucky_. Do you get that at all? I ended up really near a bag, and everyone else was just a few steps too slow at coming to their senses. If I'd gone into the fight, you'd probably have a loaner from District Two as a mentor right now. Good morning, Effie. Euphemia."  
  
I wave it off. I haven't had anything to help me wake up yet, and I don't have the energy to police what name anyone is using.  
  
I eat my breakfast while Haymitch continues to argue with Trill about the Cornucopia. Babra comes and sits by me, and asks me what I think they'll put her in for the parade. I don't have an answer, but I do offer to do her hair and help her put on makeup for her arrival in the Capitol. There are almost always cameras at the trains, and, while the clothes she's picked out are quite pretty (she has a good eye), her unadorned face and the cloth headband she's wearing mark her as country.  
  
Besides, it takes up the time, and seems to make her feel better. While I work, she tells me about the little grocery her parents own.  
  
As soon as we pull into the Capitol, security leads Haymitch off the far side of the train, where the cameras won't catch him being taken to the Peacekeepers. I go out with the tributes, and ride with them to the Remake Center, where we meet Atilia and Lepidus. They're sent off to prep. I have to fight an urge to go with them and start fixing their hair. There's a new girl for that this year. Her name is Venia. I haven't met her yet.  
  
"What are you doing with them?" I ask the stylists. "I know you worked it out with Glass…"  
  
"The Naked Truth," Lepidus intones, putting his hands up and peering through a box he makes with his fingers, like he's seeing it on a screen. "Life is hard and unadorned in Twelve. So we thought we'd show how lean and tough it --"  
  
"You're sending them down _naked_?" I ask. "Are you crazy?"  
  
"It was Glass's plan. And a lot of the teams are doing it this year. Did you read _Chic_ last month? It's all about body honesty this season."  
  
"Yes, and _Fashion Gab_ said that was ridiculous. So did _Capitol View_. No one is seriously going to be running around naked."  
  
"But we don't have any costumes for them," Atilia says. "That would have had to be started weeks ago. Parade day can only be for fitting costumes and doing the alterations. We can't design a whole costume while they're in prep."  
  
The panicked tightening in my chest comes back. If they go down naked, Haymitch will think _I_ let them, and I have the distinct impression that he wouldn't like it. "What about old costumes?" I ask. "Can we get them out of the tribute museum?"  
  
"That's prohibited," Lepidus says. "We can't disturb historical artifacts."  
  
"It'll be very artistic," Atilia assures me. "Handprints in coal dust to show the work of the district and --"  
  
"Coal dust… we have coal dust."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"A lot of it?"  
  
"Enough."  
  
"Good. Use it as body paint. There was a picture… oh, fifty years ago, maybe? I saw it in fashion history. woman was naked, and they painted her with cosmetics enough that she looked like she was wearing clothes."  
  
"But --"  
  
"Just do it." I shake my head. "And give them something to cover themselves until they're well inside the chariot."  
  
I see them give each other a look of long-suffering forbearance, but I don't have a chance to argue any further (and besides, I'm the escort -- they should just do it). A runner from Capitol Dreams who looks vaguely familiar from other events rushes over and tells me that the Daughters of the Founding have invited Haymitch to their yearly luncheon.   
  
He obviously can't go, so I take five minutes to clean up, and go in his stead. They seem disappointed not to have him. From the sound of it, he charms their socks off every year, and they adore him. But after a little while, they seem happy enough to make a fuss over me instead. They show me pictures of their pets and their houses. None of them are married or have children. I talk to them about all the monuments they sponsor. "And speaking of sponsorships," I say, earning a fond smile at the awkward segue, "can I tell you a little bit about our tributes, Trill and Babra…?"  
  
They give their usual amounts, and urge me to give Haymitch their best.   
  
"You would just be _adorable_ for him, dear," Ulpia Jakes tells me. "He's such a lonely young man. A nice girl like you would do him a world of good."  
  
"We're only professionally involved," I say. "I'm a little young for him."  
  
"That just needs a little nudge, dear."  
  
I finish up and get back to the Remake Center just as the kids are getting out . They've been smeared with a good deal of coal dust, but I can still tell that they're naked. Babra is nearly in tears, crouched on the chariot with her arms covering everything she can get them to cover. Trill is stalking around, carrying a clipboard over the relevant bits, though they're in full view from the back.  
  
"Is this real?" he asks me.  
  
"I'm sorry. I hoped the dust would cover more."  
  
"Yeah, well… it doesn't. I'm going to be standing there on national television flapping in the breeze."  
  
"I'm sorry --"  
  
He shakes his head. "I know it's not your fault. But can't you _do_ something?"  
  
I go back to Lepidus, who's trying to anoint the chariot itself with coal dust, much to the annoyance of the production assistant charged with keeping it sparkling.  
  
"Coal comes in bags, doesn't it?" I ask.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Couldn't you… grab a coal sack and cut a couple of holes in it? Make it a tunic? You could say it represents… ingenuity. The ingenuity born of necessity. Right?"  
  
"I am not sending them out there dressed in burlap sacks."  
  
"You're sending them out _naked_. It doesn't exactly show off your skill as a stylist."  
  
"Style and fashion are related, my dear, but they aren't the same thing. They look stylish now, with or without clothes…"  
  
"Their parents are watching."  
  
"So are their potential sponsors," Atilia cuts in. "And I think their parents wouldn't want you risking sponsorships by sending them out looking like a bad joke about abject poverty."  
  
I can't argue with that. It's true. I go to them.  
  
"I'm sorry," I say. "There's nothing more we can do at this point. Just… stand close to the front of the chariot and… keep your legs together."  
  
I get them arranged as modestly as I can in the chariot, then tell the skin crew to give them one more coat of dust. I spread Babra's pretty blonde hair down over her breasts. It's the best I can do. But I think I _will_ start looking for a new stylist team. They never should have let Glass talk them into this.  
  
Thinking of Glass, I glance over at the District Four team. Neither of their mentors is here. I'm guessing that they're in the same sort of meetings Haymitch is in. I recognize a very young man I knew from Capitol Dreams tentatively making suggestions to the stylists. Luckily, their old escort didn't leave them with a disaster. They're wearing costumes made of shells. The girl looks like she actually likes it. The boy looks bored with everything.  
  
Runners come through and instruct everyone to get lined up. I try to convince Trill and Babra to smile and be friendly, but I think I'll be lucky if either one of them even looks up to meet the camera's view.  
  
Atilia is right about the sponsors, but I can't help thinking that the parents in District Twelve are going to be furious, and that the first person they'll blame for it is me.  
  
The parade has already started when Haymitch runs into the Remake Center. He looks up at the screen with horror when he sees his tributes, but at least he doesn't fume at _me_.  
  
After the parade, I give both kids long smocks from the hairdressing stations, and we all go to the Training Center together. They go to their rooms, and come back wearing clothes that cover them from ankle to chin. We watch the parade recaps. They did make a splash. The body painting with coal dust is praised to the rafters as "daring" and "provocative." Word on the street about it is somewhat less cerebral, but still complimentary.  
  
They both look ashamed, and head off to bed without eating much of the dinner that's been set out for them.  
  
Haymitch continues to be pulled away at inconvenient times throughout the training. I meet with a lot of sponsors, and work most of Haymitch's usual alliances. Chaff Leary from Eleven fumes about the investigation, and what he calls the deliberate targeting of Pelagia Pepper's beloved districts (Twelve, Four, and Seven… Blight isn't present for most of training, either). "They want to smoke her out," he theorizes. "That's all this is about."  
  
If that's the plan, it doesn't work. She doesn't surface, and by the end of training, the Peacekeepers have apparently run out of things to question the mentors about, as they all return to work. Either that, or Caesar, who's been fuming all over Games Headquarters, finally got his way.  
  
The kids are able to get modestly decent scores -- Babra gets a seven, and Trill a six -- and Haymitch and I spend the next day prepping them for interviews. I help them learn to move around fully clothed and in decent shoes; he goes over their interview strategies. They've both gotten sullen at the lack of time for mentoring, and I spend as much time as I can cheering them up.  
  
Lepidus managed to re-think the interview costumes, which were originally sheer to the point of non-existence. Now, the original dress for Babra is just a diaphanous robe over a sparkly black jumpsuit, and Trill is wearing a perfectly normal suit.  
  
Games workers sweep them toward the stage, and Haymitch and I are herded down to the Games personnel area. We sit together, but we don't talk. He's gone as sullen as they have.  
  
The lights on the audience go down, and the Games fanfare begins.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen," an announcer calls out jovially, "give a big hand to your host for the Fifty-Ninth Annual Hunger Games, CAESAR FLICKERMAN!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the interviews, Effie goes back to her home at Capitol Dreams, where she talks to an old friend of Haymitch's. The next morning, the Games begin.

"Chaff Leary," Haymitch says, pointing at the man who is now sitting on my other side as Caesar does his opening riff. "Chaff, this is Effie… _Euphemia_ Trinket. New escort. Try not to offend her too much. Turns out she's actually pretty good, and I don't want her to run off."  
  
I shake Chaff's single hand, which he has to twist around in his seat to offer. "Nice to meet you," I say. "And I'm really not that easy to offend."  
  
Haymitch grins. "Don't challenge him like that, Effie. He'll find a way." He winces. "Euphemia. Sorry."  
  
Chaff laughs. "Honey, I think you best get used to 'Effie.' He's never going to remember the other one drunk. Besides, 'Effie' suits you."  
  
He is shushed by a passing security guard, and we settle in for the interviews. Before last year, I would have spent this time deciding who I liked best. In Haymitch's year, I liked his ally, Maysilee, best. I loved her pretty hair, and her dress, and the way she talked about everyone trying to get along. I didn't think much of Haymitch (other than that he was very good-looking, which didn't mean much to me at nine) until he was actually in the arena, and really, not until Maysilee caught up with him. I think that's when he started growing on everyone. At least he was never one of the screamers. I've never liked the ones who do what the District One boy is doing now -- flexing his muscles and screaming at the top of his lungs about how fit and ready he is.  
  
The District Two tributes are more or less the same -- both of them -- and the girl from Three makes an attempt at a brag. The boy doesn't bother. He just lets Caesar guide him into talking about his favorite inventions.  
  
When Caesar moves on to the tributes from Four, I see Haymitch tense up and glance at the security guards, but I can't see any reason for it. Regardless, both the girl and the boy from Four are tensing up as well, and so is Mags Donovan, who's sitting a row ahead of us.  
  
The girl, Fanning Kavanagh, practically jumps when Caesar leads her out. She manages a brittle smile, and tells everyone how much she loves going to the beach, and how greatly she's been enjoying the generosity of the Capitol since she got here.  
  
The boy, Harris Greaves, comes next.  
  
"Well, Harris," Caesar says, "an eleven… quite a score. I'm sure everyone's curious!"  
  
"I'm sure they are," Harris says coolly. "And I assure everyone, once I get into the arena, you'll see why I got it. But I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise."  
  
There's a kind of nervous laughter in the audience. The words sound like a joke, but Harris's face and tone don't seem to match them.  
  
"Oh-ho!" Caesar cries, waggling his eyebrows. "Surprises in store… then what _shall_ we talk about?..."  
  
Caesar does most of the talking. Harris glares out at the audience, answering Caesar's questions about his home life with only the briefest of comments. I doubt he'll get many sponsors out of this. Caesar seems glad to be done with him and move on to District Five, where he fusses over a nervous redheaded girl named Athena Burke. Back in his seat, Harris Greaves continues to stare. Judging by what's on the screens around us, the television audience isn't seeing much of him at all.  
  
I have mostly forgotten about him by the time we get to District Eleven, where the girl, Daylily, is a simply beautiful thing who barely has to say a word to be guaranteed a whole crowd of sponsors. Chaff's boy, Planter Maye, tries his best to be funny. It's his only chance for sponsors -- he's a skinny, bucktoothed boy of thirteen wearing a pair of thick glasses. He does pretty well.   
  
Caesar reaches Babra, and I look around the audience. Many of them are checking their watches, and I see two women playing a discreet game on their handhelds a few sections over. No one is watching. I realize that they almost never are by the time District Twelve comes around.  
  
"Look at you!" Caesar says, leading her forward into the light, where the pretty blue dress we found for her glimmers. "Aren't you beautiful!"  
  
"I feel prettier with clothes on," she says. "That's for sure. I've never been so embarrassed in my life!"  
  
Caesar puts a protective arm around her. "Now, everyone knows you didn't make up that parade costume -- or lack thereof." He looks to the audience. "Babra doesn't have anything to be embarrassed about, does she?"  
  
The audience cheers on this implicit command.  
  
"See?" he says. "You're fine. Now, I understand your family has a grocery store. We've only had a few other merchants from your district here to talk to us…"  
  
Babra warms to this topic fairly quickly, talking about her store, and how nice it's been to get to know Trill, as the miners and merchants apparently haven't had much chance to know each other at home. I think about the miner turning me away from part of the town, and I wonder just how bad it is. I should ask Haymitch, if I remember.  
  
"And finally -- last but not least -- Trillium Morrison!"  
  
Trill swaggers forward. "Hi, Caesar," he says. "Most people call me Trill."  
  
"Ah, I stand corrected. So tell me, Trill -- you've been listening to all the others for a while now. What is it that you'll bring to the arena that you haven't already heard about?"  
  
Trill thinks about it for a minute -- or pretends to -- then says, "Desire."  
  
"Desire?"  
  
"I want to get through the arena and get a kiss from our pretty new escort, Effie Trinket." He grins wickedly, and suddenly, my face is all over the big screens. I see Haymitch snickering.  
  
He coached Trill. He _knew_ he was going to say that.  
  
"Well," Caesar says, as the camera cuts back to him, "I'd have to say that is certainly a motivational goal."  
  
"What can I say?" Trill pats his chest and bats his eyelashes. "I'm a romantic at heart."  
  
Now Chaff is snickering as well, and there's laughter through the audience, and in my head, I hear the boys in the hall at school laughing at me when I came through the doors in my new clothes and my new wig. I see them jeering. It wasn't just that day. I heard their laughter all the way through school. They would always make horrible declarations about how they just couldn't live without me, and would just die right then if I didn't "loosen up" for them. I thought I was done with it.  
  
I force myself to continue smiling, in case the cameras come back. Beside me, I see Haymitch looking at me sharply, no longer laughing.  
  
Trill finishes up, and Caesar does his closing patter.  
  
Haymitch takes my arm just above my elbow and whispers, "You okay? You look spooked."  
  
"I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
He looks at me steadily, and something tells me that he doesn’t believe me for a second. His eyes, which are even sharp and lively when he's drunk, are narrowed and bright. "Effie, you need to tell me if something's wrong. But don't tell Trill."  
  
"I know. It's okay."  
  
He nods and we make our way through the crowd, back into the training center, where Babra and Trill are waiting for us. We take the elevator up with the District Eleven team. No one really talks on the way, though Daylily smiles awkwardly at Babra and says, "Well… um… see you tomorrow?"  
  
Babra swallows hard. "Hopefully not too closely."  
  
"Yeah. That."  
  
They exit into their apartment.  
  
We go up to the last floor.  
  
The kids are nervous now, so Haymitch and I distract them as much as possible. We don't discuss this. He mentors them intensively and technically, and I try to tempt them with some rich desserts. Neither approach is terribly successful, but when it comes time for them to go to bed, they at least seem a little less keyed up.   
  
Once they're down for the night, Haymitch turns to me. "We won't see them tomorrow morning," he says. "And you'll have an early meeting. The escorts almost always do. You don't need to stay here anymore. You can go back to wherever you live."  
  
"You want me to leave?"  
  
"I want you to get some rest." He sits down. "It's going to be bad tomorrow, Effie. You know that, right? You're not going to have to worry about Trill demanding his kiss."  
  
"If he makes it through, he'll get one."  
  
"No." He points to a chair. "Effie, sit down."  
  
I take a seat.  
  
He leans across and takes my hands. "He's not going to make it. I can't talk him out of the damned Cornucopia, and he's not going to make it through there."  
  
"Haymitch -- "  
  
"But even if he does, it's not your job to dole out kisses or anything else. Trill knows it, too. You're our escort. You can kiss anyone you feel like , but you're not anyone's prize. You get that, right? I mean, no one's been telling you anything else, have they?"  
  
"No. I just…"  
  
"It was supposed to be a joke. Just sort of making him seem normal to everyone… a boy with a crush on the pretty girl. I didn't think you'd take it seriously. You want to tell me what that was about?"  
  
"Nothing," I say. "I just don't like being laughed at. I know, it's stupid."  
  
"No. It's not." He reaches up and rubs his head. "I'm afraid you're on the wrong team if you don't want to be laughed at, though. They've been on me since my victory tour, and you just got stuck with me."  
  
"Maybe if we could get your image cleaned up a little…"  
  
"Yeah. That'll happen." He shakes his head. "It's too late for that, Effie. It's been too late for that for a long time now. But thanks. I'll try and keep it directed away from you."  
  
I sit there across from him for a few minutes, then he seems to realize for the first time that he's holding my hands. He lets go and smiles sheepishly.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" I ask.  
  
He nods. "You should go home. I'll see you tomorrow." We get up, and he walks me to the elevator. "It's going to be ugly," he says again as I step into it. "I'll probably be pretty ugly, too. I apologize in advance."  
  
I push the button for the door to close, but he's leaning on it. I think for a minute that he means to kiss me, which is crazy -- he's seven years older than I am and quite famous -- but he doesn't. He just steps back and lets the door close. I don't know whether I’m disappointed or relieved.  
  
The training center itself is quiet tonight, as the tributes try to rest, and the rest of the buildings in Games Headquarters, while lit up and full, are just busy with the last stages of work before the Games begin.  
  
When I cross out of Games Headquarters and into the city, everything changes.   
  
You never have to go far to find a party in the Capitol, but during the Games, the whole city is a party. The streetlights are sparkling, and people spill out of the clubs, dancing to music so fast and cheerful that it's hard not to dance. Vendors line the sidewalks with all kinds of memorabilia. Daylily from Eleven has inspired large, lit-up hair decorations shaped like the flower she was named for. There are headbands with floppy springs on them showing the wearers' favored districts, and tee shirts with the tributes pictures on them. I see someone wearing a black shirt with blond hair stenciled in over the breasts, and a giant "12" between them.  
  
There's betting going on, and it's spilled over into more innocent kinds of betting -- dice and cards have come out, and footraces are being contested by drunken revelers.  
  
In the distance, at the lakeshore, I can see Bacchus Pleasure Park, its wheels and rides lit up against the blackness of the water beyond. I was there two years ago with Capitol Dreams, handing out Stay-Awake fizzy candies so people could keep the party up. There were face painters and clowns and an amazing dance team that did numbers representing every district. I wanted so badly to be one of them, but I don't think I'd have really been comfortable dressed in their skimpy costumes, shaking my breasts at strangers.  
  
But they were so _pretty_.  
  
I let my feet carry me through the city. I'm never afraid out on the streets like this. Strangers mostly ignore me, even if my face _was_ on television a few hours ago. My wig isn't that unusual, and my makeup is up-to-date, so everyone is wearing it. I could blend in at any of the clubs, but I know Haymitch wants me to get some rest, so I just weave through the parties, catching bits and pieces, on my way home.  
  
At Club Caligula, there are naked people dancing outside, covered in coal dust. They seem happier about it than Trill and Babra were. At the Forum -- the big outdoor club only bounded from the street by netting and armed guards -- there's a light show, and, as I pass, they start playing a dance version of the Games fanfare. I go into the park that goes around City Center, where the festivities are more family oriented, and I see children enjoying their late night up, racing each other around crazily and playing tag with toy swords. Parents watch indulgently, and I think about Haymitch telling me that it will be ugly tomorrow, that Trill will never collect his kiss.  
  
I stop walking. I can't start thinking that way. The Games are played for a reason. If it weren't for the Games, there would be a lot more dead children. They _should_ be celebrated. They stopped thousands more deaths from happening, and they remind us all of how horrible the war was.  
  
I swallow hard and go sit in a crowd of parents who are watching their children fondly. I wonder where _my_ parents are. I think my father decided to re-contract with someone younger and have another child, but I haven't seen him for a few years. I'm not sure if it ever happened. Last I knew, my mother was working at a shop in the fashion district, still trying to pay off the bills she ran up, but I haven't seen her since I moved into the Capitol Dreams compound. I should call her.  
  
"Are you all right?" a woman says beside me. "You look a little sick."  
  
"I'm fine, really."  
  
"We're going to put on some music in a few minutes. Do you want to dance?"  
  
I shake my head. "No -- I really should get home."  
  
But I stay there for a little while, watching the party. Everyone's having fun. A little blond girl is pretending to be Babra, and she's decided that the high score she got was for being a good shot. She is pretending to fire things from a slingshot while the others laugh.  
  
I wait until the odd feeling passes, then move on.  
  
The Dreams compound is on the far side of the park, and the party is going on here as much as anywhere else, though a lot of people are out working the clubs and parks. Once the Games are over, I'll look for a place of my own, so someone else who's in money trouble can have my bed, but everything happened so fast that I didn't have time before I left. I go up to the third floor, which I share with five other girls. Miss Meadowbrook is our house mother, and she's the only one home when I get there.  
  
"Euphemia!" she says when I come in, and I've been "Effie" so constantly over the last few days that I almost forget to answer. She comes over, smiling widely. "Oh, you looked so pretty on television tonight. I imagine you were a little nervous."  
  
I let her lead me to the kitchen table, where she pours me a cup of tea. "It was all right," I tell her.  
  
"Have you really been kissing young Trillium?"  
  
I shake my head. "Haymitch thinks I won't be doing it at all."  
  
"Haymitch is a sourpuss." She smiles. "How is he? Other than being sour, of course." She laughs and rolls her eyes. "I wish we could get him to cheer up a little bit. I think he could be happy if he'd let himself. Is he still drinking too much, or is that just a rumor?"  
  
"He was pretty drunk the day before the reaping," I tell her, though I feel inclined to add, "but he sobered up right away when the mentoring started. He's sober for the tributes."  
  
"That sounds right." She takes a sip of her own tea. "Do you know, he actually had moral qualms about taking a little something for himself -- me -- because it might cost one sponsorship?"  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"If he was with me, a sponsorship would look like a payment, so he had to decide whether he wanted me or my money. It was quite a scandal that year -- some of the victors trading… well, best left behind. But there are rules. I still can't sponsor District Twelve, at least until people forget, if you were thinking of asking."  
  
I'm not sure that anyone other than Miss Meadowbrook -- Haymitch included -- remembers, but I don't correct her. The public probably thinks of her more with Avitus Ames, the singer she was married to for about forty-eight hours two years ago, and even that's sort of a while back. She never talks about that, just Haymitch, though that's probably just because of my assignment. It's not like she talked about him all the time before I ended up on the District Twelve team.  
  
"It's probably better you didn't get that kiss," she muses.  
  
"What?" I look up, wondering if I somehow let slip that I thought Haymitch might kiss me before I left, but she just has a kind of faraway look on her face. One of the other girls, Verina Dorne, says that Miss Meadowbrook is a "high attention case," and frequently needs to be taken on outings to prevent her lapses into maudlin thoughts. We all take our turns.  
  
"The boy is cute," she says, coming up with a smile, and I realize that she's talking about Trill, "but it's better not to get involved with district boys. I suppose you could always just play with them, but…." She sighs. "They take playing very seriously, and you can end up hurting them. There's no reason to do that."  
  
"What if I were serious?"  
  
She looks at me with vague interest. "About a district boy? Where would it _go_ , Euphemia? Do you imagine there would be some long, happily-ever-after life? They can't move here, and of course, you wouldn't want to go there. And if there were children…" She goes very quiet, then the smile comes back. "Well, you wouldn't want to pull your own children's names out of the reaping balls, would you? Because Capitol citizenship has to come from both parents." She shudders theatrically. "Imagine that! The child of a Capitol citizen in the Games. That's hardly what they're for!" She laughs. "Oh, listen to me, going on about things that aren't going to happen. You know better than that. Of all my girls, you're the last I'd expect to get in _that_ sort of trouble."  
  
"Probably true," I say. "Would you like to go downstairs and see who's back from the park? It looked like Zeno and Leontia had a dance contest started when I came through."  
  
"Oh, that sounds fun! Why didn't you join them?"  
  
"I was going to get some rest. I told Haymitch I would. But I'm not very sleepy, really. And you look like you could use some cheering up."  
  
"Oh, don't let the sourpuss spoil the party for you. He's a dear, but my heavens, he could make a meadowlark mope." She opens her purse and takes out a few pills. I know at least one of them is for staying awake. I think the others are for her mood. She gulps them down with her cooling tea and offers me two of them. "They'll get you out of that mopey place in your head," she says. "And you'll be fine for work in the morning."  
  
I take them. I'm not sure what they are, but I am sure that Miss Meadowbrook isn't out to hurt me, and that _she_ knows exactly what they are.  
  
Half an hour later, I'm happy again, and dancing with my friends, and, as promised, in the morning, I wake up on time, feeling much better -- _clearer_ \-- than I have for days.  
  
I paint my face and put on a bright yellow wig and a pretty green dress that a designer sent over for me. It's made from preserved spinach leaves. Clothes made from food are supposedly going to be big over the next few months. It's a big hit at the escorts' meeting.  
  
Haymitch is nonplussed by it when I get to the Viewing Center just before ten, and Chaff looks actively annoyed, muttering about a waste of a harvest, but I let it wash over me. There's no time for either of them to get any further with their commentary. The Games are about to begin.  
  
"Are you ready to take sponsor calls?" Haymitch asks.  
  
"I have the book. I was taking them for days, remember?"  
  
"Right." He frowns. "What's wrong with you?"  
  
"Nothing at all!"  
  
He sighs, then says, "Okay. You seem alert enough. If they make it past the Cornucopia, the calls will start coming. I've been looking through the supply book. From the looks of it, it's going to be wet out there. I'm looking at some protective plastic bags for whatever supplies they can get. And maybe their feet, depending on what the uniforms are. They're pricey, but we're almost there. Try to get as much as you can."  
  
I rearrange the call area to put things in easier reach for me. "On it," I promise, and give him my best smile. "I told you -- I've got your back."  
  
He rubs his head. "Yeah. You do. I guess that's what counts."  
  
The Games fanfare blares over the sound system, and we all turn to the big screen, where the broadcast that will go out to the public plays out. Around it, hundreds of dark little screens are waiting to go live with their views of the arena.  
  
On the screen, the producers have linked together scenes from all of the previous Games. I see a flash of Mags with her slingshot, and Beetee with his wires. I see Faraday Sykes and Brutus Emmett. I see Haymitch laughing atop a cliff (beside me, he grinds his teeth).  
  
All of this fades to a dark room, and a hazy gray light. A few tables down, someone identifies the camera as being on one of Woof's District Eight tributes.  
  
Claudius Templesmith voices over the rise up into the arena. The hazy light is all we see, even as the camera pans. The Cornucopia is lit with golden light, but the camera sees the tributes only as hazy dark forms in the fog. Thin rills of water run through deep mud all around, and trees with thick, vine-like leaves trail down.  
  
"A swamp," Seeder says. "How are they supposed to run?"  
  
But they try.  
  
When the countdown ends, and the gong sounds, they rush for the Cornucopia like they always do.  
  
Trill doesn't even make it halfway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed, this story has graduated from a nine chapter interlude into a full 27 chapter story. It's flowing better when I'm not trying to force that nine chapter pace.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the first day of the Games, Effie learns more about what happened to Glass, and Haymitch's remaining tribute gets an ally.

Trill is between the girl from One and the boy from Four, and as soon as the gong sounds, he makes a break for the Cornucopia. I don't know if he's a good runner at home or not, but here, it's useless. The mud and thin rivulets of water make running difficult, if not impossible. The ones actually making progress toward the Cornucopia seem to have lucked into fairly solid ground. Trill's foot sinks into the mud and he's thrown forward.  
  
The boy from Four, Harris, rushes over, turns his face down, and holds him under the muddy water until he's still.  
  
I stare at his body, willing him to get up, silently promising him any kisses he wants, but he stays down.  
  
He's not the only one down. I don't know the order, but there are already losses in District Nine and District Six. A group is converging on the Cornucopia now, which is up on a semi-dry hillock, and the battle begins.  
  
Babra is not in that group. I check her screen. She did exactly what Haymitch told her -- she jumped backward off her platform and is moving as quickly as she can toward the shadows. The tributes' uniforms this year seem to be some kind of body length swimsuits, topped off by rain slickers. Both are dark green and gray camouflage. Babra is already soaked despite the nominal protection, and she's rubbing her arms for warmth.  
  
I look at Trill's screen again.  
  
He's still down.  
  
I shake the screen.  
  
Haymitch puts his hand over mine. "He's gone, Effie."  
  
I shake my head. "It's just the beginning…"  
  
"Not for Trill."  
  
"No…"  
  
"Effie, I told you what would happen. This is what happens every year. This is what the Games are."  
  
I stare at the screen. I think about Trill flirting with me on the train.  
  
"We still have to watch out for Babra."  
  
I nod. Take a deep breath.  
  
"Do you want me to watch her while you call Trill's family?"  
  
"I'm going to wait until the official count is through. Just in case he's only unconscious. But he's not. I want to make sure she's away clean, too."  
  
The phone rings, and I grab it. Anything to not look at Trill face down in the mud. I turn on the video connection. There's an older lady there, holding a cute little dog. The dog is wearing a little cap that has the number twelve on it in sparkly rhinestones.  
  
"Hello," I say, trying to keep my voice perky and my smile sharp. "I'm Euphemia Trinket, District Twelve. Can I help you?"  
  
"Oh, you poor thing, that boy was your friend wasn't he?"  
  
"Yes, ma'am. Trill was a good boy."  
  
She pats the dog. "Well, I'm Ancharia King, and Popples and I would very much like to help the girl out. What do you need that I can help with?"  
  
I look up at the screen. Babra is on the main screen now, stuck at an expanse of dirty water, trying to hide in the tree line. "Well, ma'am, she's going to need to keep her provisions as dry as she can, and she'll need a water purifier, too. Do you think you could help us get her a bag to keep her things in? They're pricey, but we have other sponsors helping out…"  
  
I get a solid donation out of Ancharia King, and I feel better. I decide to work down a list of names of potential sponsors that Haymitch has jotted down at the back of the book. It seems like the right thing to do.  
  
By the time they start sounding the cannon for the battle at the Cornucopia, I've secured enough money to get Babra a bag and some water purifying tablets (along with a bottle), and Haymitch has directed me to start working toward a waterproof sleeping bag. Babra herself has found a log, and is using it as a float to paddle herself along in the shallow water behind a curtain of vines. After capsizing several times, her long, pretty hair is stuck to her back in muddy clumps.  
  
"It looks like the vegetation is mostly edible," he says. "Probably a few poisonous things to watch out for, but she did all right at plant recognition. Food should be okay. And no one seems to be convulsing from the water, so with the purifier, she should be okay there, too."  
  
I nod. My hands are shaking. I didn't notice that. Trill's screen is dark. I can't see him in the mud anymore. They're probably already bringing him up to the hovercraft.  
  
"I need to call the Morrisons," Haymitch says. "Are you okay on your own? Keep an eye on the public screen, so you'll know what the sponsors are talking about."  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
He looks at me doubtfully for a minute, then sighs. "I guess you are. You're good at this. But you forgot to put it on my schedule to thank Caesar. I'm glad you're here, Effie." He stands to go, then turns back. "I'm not one to talk, but… during the Games, could you not take whatever you took before you came in?"  
  
"It was just a mood adjustor. Miss Meadowbrook gave it to me."  
  
"I wish she'd stop adjusting her mood, too. But I don't need her here. I do need you. I'd rather have you in a bad mood and all the way here than checked out. All of this is real, Effie. I need you to remember that."  
  
"Okay."  
  
He nods and goes to the bank of phone booths to place his call to District Twelve.  
  
I turn my attention to the public screen, though I keep Babra's screen where I can see it as well. (She's investigating the parachute we sent her and purifying some water.) On the main screen, the inner district kids are sheltering inside the Cornucopia, sorting out the spoils. The girl from District Four didn't make it. She was attacked by a mutt with large teeth after the battle ended, while I was on the phone with sponsors. If Harris is in pain over this -- or over drowning Trill in cold blood -- it doesn't show. He is sitting on top of an empty crate, going through a pile of weapons.  
  
"What _is_ this?" the girl from Two asks, scraping muck off her boots and tossing it down in disgust. The caption identifies her as Lucia.  
  
"It's a swamp," Harris says. "It's different from the one we have down by the coast, but same idea. You want to spread your weight out as much as you can, or you can sink in the mud. And check depths." He sighs. "And watch for the gators."  
  
"The whats?"  
  
"The thing that got Fanning. It's a mutt version, but it's still a gator. I'd guess there are some nasty bugs around here, too."  
  
"How are we going to get around?" Lucia asks. "They'll hear us coming -- you either splash or squelch around here."  
  
"Can you swim?"  
  
Most of them can. Harris announces that their strategy will be to find deep water, and swim as silently as possible to confront enemies. "They'll be on dry enough ground that they'll hear us when we come up, but we'll try to come up close enough that they can't run. And you guys are going to get some practice before we raid. You looked like crap getting here."  
  
The District One boy, Tourmaline, stands up and moves directly into Harris's space. "I don't know. You've about outlived your usefulness already. Thanks for the advice. But you're not the general."  
  
Harris raises his legs and kicks Tourmaline in the abdomen without too much force, just pushing him away. "You think I'm the only one who knows how to handle a swamp? I guarantee they've got them in Eleven, and I'd be willing to bet the lumberjacks in Seven know what to do if they run across one in the woods. So you've got four more people to worry about, who all handle it better than you desert people do. And I doubt there's one of you who knows how to catch a frog or fish. I'm willing to help you out, because it'll be easier for a while with the usual gang, but I don't care whether or not you find me useful. If you don't want to work with me, I'll leave you on your own, or I'll kill you. It's all the same to me. One way or another, I mean to go home."  
  
Lucia gets between them. "Let's not go to melee before the end," she says. "We'll work this stuff out _then_." She looks from one to the other. "Guys, come on. We're all friends from training, right?"  
  
Beside me, I hear Chaff snort. I look at him.  
  
"Friends from training," he explains. "That's the story every year, but it's a business deal. They mostly hated each other."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Sorry to spoil the story for you."  
  
"No. It's interesting to know." I smile. "Besides, most people figure that's an act."  
  
"They do?"  
  
"Yeah. Of course."  
  
"Huh. I figured Capitol people just bought the whole show."  
  
I roll my eyes. We're not _rubes_. Of course it's a show. Most years, the kids are actually mean to each other.  
  
On screen, Tourmaline and Harris grudgingly shake hands. The girl from One, Catawba, who has been carefully arming herself and retreating toward the exit during this exchange, stops and says, "Then we're still allies?"  
  
Harris shrugs. "Until melee. Then I don't care. I'm going home. They didn't let me say goodbye to my mother."  
  
The coverage abruptly cuts away. Whatever Harris is saying, the Gamemakers have decided isn't for public consumption. I shouldn't want to know. But I can see on one of the small screens that he's talking as they get ready to leave. Saying _something_. I note the number on the screen, check our audio array and start to move my earphone plug.  
  
I can't, though. It's not for my ears, and besides, Babra might need my attention and --  
  
"Go ahead."  
  
I look up at Haymitch, who looks about a year older than he did before he called the Morrisons. "What?"  
  
"I saw you. You want to know what he's about to say. So do I. Listen. Tell me later. I'll watch Babra."  
  
"Is it allowed?"  
  
"They gave you the console, didn't they? So they must want you to use it."  
  
I guess this is true. If it were forbidden, it wouldn't be possible.  
  
I plug into the sound system for the inner district alliance.  
  
"…mayor was pulling names," Harris finishes, looking disgusted.  
  
"I didn't notice," Catawba says.  
  
"Yeah, well, they didn't make a very big deal, did they? But our escort was speared on the beach like the world's ugliest fish. And they started dragging the women in to interrogate them. They had my mom during the whole visiting time."  
  
"Why would they do _that_?"  
  
"The old District Seven escort -- and Twelve, I guess -- killed him. So they think she's hiding with us."  
  
"How do they know?"  
  
Harris looks around. "All I know is what I heard. He was stabbed through the chest with a trident -- that's a fishing spear -- but there was something cut on his chest with a knife. Everyone was talking about it before the reaping. One of the guys from the crew that found him said she wrote 'Love, Gia' on his chest. Or maybe that was on paper or something, I don't know, but there was a knife there. It was an arena knife. Had the name of one of the kids from the fiftieth Games on it. Those were her last Games, and one of those knives might have been on the train, right? So they're pretty sure it's her. Only she didn't come forward, so they're interrogating everyone. And I want to get back, because I want to know that my mom's all right."  
  
"I get it," Catawba tells him. "But everyone wants to get home, Harris, and only one of us is going to."  
  
"Yeah. And it's going to be me. Sorry, but it's true."  
  
"It doesn’t make sense," Tourmaline says.  
  
"What doesn't?"  
  
"Why they'd drag in everyone." He shrugs, and passes a water bottle over to the boy from District Two, Trajan. "I mean, why not just find people who appeared out of nowhere, wearing heels and talking like they're from the Capitol?"  
  
"Anyone can cover up an accent with a little practice," Harris says. "And if she's there, she's been there almost ten years. As to people who just show up?" He shrugs. "People cross our lines from the out-districts a lot. Mostly women. We have the easiest border, through the water, if you just miss the mines. So we end up with a lot of people who just 'show up.'"  
  
"Still, someone would have to _remember_ …"  
  
"And that someone would have to tell. That someone _isn't_ telling." He grimaces. "If I ever find her…"  
  
"You'll kill her yourself?"  
  
Harris narrows his eyes. "They took my mother away screaming," he says. "I saw it from the platform. So, yeah. I wouldn't be real happy with her."  
  
He moves on ahead, parting the heavy vines that hang from the swamp trees and leading them away from the Cornucopia. They stop talking.  
  
I pull out my earpiece.  
  
Haymitch looks at me quizzically.  
  
"It's about your friend Gia. I guess he heard about the murder. He said they found -- "  
  
"I've seen the pictures, in gory detail."  
  
"He's angry because she didn't turn herself in. They took his mother before he could say goodbye."  
  
Haymitch grinds his teeth. "Great. And somehow, he's figuring it's Gia's fault."  
  
It occurs to me that if she's not turning herself in when she sees that they're after everyone else, then it _is_ her fault, but I reconsider before saying it out loud. I think Haymitch wouldn't agree with me.  
  
He looks at me for a long time, then sighs and shakes his head. "We may have an alliance," he says, turning away with some finality and nodding toward the main screen. Babra's camera has come back up, and is cutting back and forth with the girl from Seven, Nell Gordon. Nell is a strong-looking girl with short brown hair, and I think she was one who boasted about how strong she was at the interviews. She has also found a log to float on, and they are circling each other warily. I'm not sure why Haymitch is assuming it's an alliance in the offing.  
  
Nell has broken off a piece of soggy wood. It has a sharp end, and it could probably do some damage. I don't think Babra has anything, but she hides her hand in the rain jacket's pocket and calls, "You let me go, I'll let you go. I've got no grudge with you."  
  
Nell snorts. "Like we need a grudge in here."  
  
"Come on. We'll get a day or two. Both of us can get on our feet."  
  
"I'm already on my feet. I spent last summer shunting logs across a swamp in Camp Six. You run into a lot of this in the coal mines?"  
  
Babra rolls her eyes hugely. "I'm a grocer," she says.  
  
"Oh, well, that'll make all the difference. Lots of swampland at your store?"  
  
They close the circle a little bit, coming closer to each other. "I figure things out pretty quickly," Babra says.  
  
"Yeah? Figure this!" Nell raises the piece of wood, but the forward motion of her arm is counterbalanced in the water, and her log slides harmlessly away. She gapes, then leans forward and laughs. "Oh, yeah," she says. "I guess that was real threatening, huh?"  
  
Babra laughs back. "Yeah. About as scary as my weapon." She takes her empty hand out of her pocket.  
  
"Oh, brilliant," Haymitch mutters.  
  
Nell takes another swing with her improvised lance, which sends her log drifting away in a gentle spin.  
  
This gets both of them laughing, even though Babra _has_ to know that Nell didn't mean it as a joke.  
  
"Come on," she says. "I may not know swamps, but I do know physics. Want to be allies?"  
  
Nell looks at her quizzically. "Well, I wasn't planning on -- "  
  
The surface of the water erupts between them, sending out a huge wave and tossing both of them off their logs.  
  
The creature that emerges is twice the size of the one that attacked the girl from Four, but it's the same kind of thing -- the thing Harris called a "gator." It has razor sharp claws, and a deep mouth full of huge teeth.  
  
Nell screams and struggles toward a small hillock in the swamp.  
  
The gator jumps after her.  
  
Babra takes off her jacket and uses the log to kick off of, propelling herself through the water and toward the gator.  
  
"What's she doing?" I ask.  
  
"No idea," Haymitch says.  
  
She launches herself at the gator's back and climbs up. He tries to throw her, but she hangs on, and manages, somehow, to throw her jacket over its head, covering its eyes. She pulls back on the sleeves and holds it tight as it bellows and thrashes.  
  
"Nell!" she shouts. "Nell, kill it! Get some traction and kill it!"  
  
Nell has found something like solid ground under the water, though she's up to her chest. She grabs her pointed stick and pulls herself forward. It's slow and graceless, but she seems to be gaining confidence.  
  
As she comes in reach of the mutt's claws, she forces the stick upward into its throat.  
  
Blood pours down on her.  
  
The mutt thrashes backward, and Babra jumps wildly off to one side as it falls and sinks back into the swamp, leaving it suddenly and eerily silent. Babra gets up and wrings mud out of her hair.  
  
"So," Nell says. "You were saying something about being allies?"  
  
Babra grins.  
  
"How did you know?" I ask Haymitch. "I thought that girl was going to kill Babra."  
  
"They're both scared to death. They both ran away from the Cornucopia, like smart people do. So, scared smart people realize that it's a little less scary with help."  
  
"Were _you_ scared?"  
  
"I had forty-seven people out to kill me. What do _you_ think?"  
  
"I guess I never thought about it. You didn't _look_ scared."  
  
"They're all scared, Effie. Every last one of them. Even the ones going on about how they're sure they'll win."  
  
The clarity I woke up with is starting to fade. I can't think about this, so I stop thinking about it. "Let me get the alliance papers for Mr. Hedge," I say. I pick up the case of papers under the table and start looking for the right forms.  
  
There's a soft thump, and I look up to find that Oliver Hedge -- better known as Blight -- has pushed his table over. "Haymitch," he says.  
  
"Blight." They shake hands. Haymitch pulls over a chair for Blight's escort. "You know, I could have come over there."  
  
"You got extra room on one side," Blight says. "It's easier this way. They need to keep moving somehow. It's harder to hit a moving target."  
  
Haymitch nods. "You noticed that, too? Mags's girl, and now it comes after ours?"  
  
"I'm not counting on it just being the girls," Blight says. "I'm keeping a close eye on Sebastian, too." He looks in my direction. "Is this your new escort?"  
  
"Yeah. Eff-- Euphemia Trinket, Blight Hedge."  
  
"Pleased to meet you!" I say, extending my hand.  
  
He shakes it. "Likewise." He turns back to Haymitch. "So how can we help them keep moving…?"  
  
The two of them start talking about what gifts to send them. It sounds like they mean to send messages, which they're not supposed to do -- once the tributes are in the arena, it's supposed to be all their own thinking -- but which everyone guesses they do anyway. There are all kinds of convoluted theories about mentor messages. I'm starting to think the reality might be even _more_ convoluted.  
  
They both seem very sure that their tributes are being targeted, even though other districts (Six and Ten) have already lost both tributes, while we still have Babra, District Four still has Harris, and Blight hasn't lost either of them. In my head, I hear an old teacher of mine from Capitol Dreams, Papirius Long sighing as he looks out the window at some party or another. "The districts are paranoid and ignorant, Euphemia. It's no fault of their own -- they've been stuck in these cultural ruts for generations. They're never really exposed to life. They reject knowledge, and they fill the gaps with crazy ideas about how everyone is out to get them. That's how Thirteen got them to go along with its nonsense in the Dark Days. When you don't really believe in anything, you become very _gullible._ That's why we make sure that you believe in the Capitol, that you understand that we only want the best for these people in the end, even when they don't know what's best for themselves. It's a bulwark against gullibility."  
  
The thing is, Haymitch may be many things -- many of them not very pleasant -- but he doesn't strike me as gullible, and he's a million miles from ignorant. And honestly, I didn't meet a lot of people in District Twelve, but the ones I did meet seemed quite smart.  
  
I guess it doesn't prevent paranoia.  
  
On the main screen, they finally return to the inner district alliance. Lucia has taken over generalship, and Harris is letting her. They've commandeered a tent in the Cornucopia, and after some searching, they've found almost solid ground to set it up on, though Catawba, who's trying to place the stakes, finally gives up and secures the ropes to protruding tree roots. The resulting tent is lopsided, but seems secure enough. It's big enough for four out of the five of them, if a little tight, and the fifth will always be on guard duty outside, anyway.  
  
Harris takes the first watch, sitting stoically on a rock while the others get things arranged.  
  
"We should go back for the other tent," Trajan says. "I don't like just leaving the supplies wrapped up." He points toward a large ball of plastic wrapping, where they've stored all the food they carried from the Cornucopia. It's tethered to a tree.  
  
"Tent's not going to help," Harris says, not even looking over his shoulder into the tent. "It's just one more layer to get through when we want to get something."  
  
"Speaking of which," Lucia says, "is anyone hung--"  
  
Harris stands up, pulling a sword. "Something's coming."  
  
A howl breaks the foggy quiet of the swamp, then another, and another.  
  
The alliance comes out of the tent, weapons drawn.  
  
Three wolves come slinking out of the trees, balancing on the tree roots, their great teeth bared.  
  
They launch themselves at Harris.  
  
He strikes the first one cleanly, cutting its neck deep. The second and third jump him from the sides. Tourmaline grabs one and yanks it off, tossing it aside, stunned.  
  
Harris puts the sword through a second wolf, but it seems to stick, and when the body rolls off into the water, it takes his weapon with him.  
  
"Well, that was bracing," Catawba says, looking around nervously. She has a hunting knife raised in front of her. "They were -- "  
  
The stunned wolf jumps to its feet with sudden ferocity, and rushes on Harris. He grabs it by the neck and rolls it over into the water, forcing its head under until it stops moving.  
  
"Wow," Tourmaline says, "the mutts really don't like District Four this year."  
  
The other inner district kids laugh, but Harris doesn't. "They really don’t," he says, and kicks away the drowned wolf. "Before the overgrown poodles decided to adopt me, did someone say something about being hungry?"  


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie goes back out into the Capitol on the first night of the Games.

The rest of the day is uneventful, by Games standards. Harris teaches the other inner-district kids how to catch frogs to eat, Babra and Nell try to figure out how they're supposed to light a fire to cook with when everything is soaking wet (Haymitch hopes they won't figure it out, as any fire will be smoky and draw attention to them), and Daylily sets up quite a competent little shelter on a mud bar. Her district partner, Planter, is still wandering around, occasionally nibbling the local plant life. It doesn't seem to make him sick. An alliance forms among the remaining tributes from Districts Three, Eight, and Ten (both kids from Eight are still in play, but the other districts have each lost one).  
  
By dinner time, Claudius Templesmith has started calling in the experts and commentators, since not much has happened in the arena. I've managed to scrounge up enough money for some matches, if Haymitch decides to change his mind about the girls building a fire (or if Mr. Hedge manages to talk him into it; they don't agree on the danger level, but Mr. Hedge's sponsors haven't given enough for him to act on his own).   
  
When the main coverage breaks, Haymitch sighs. "Effie, would you mind taking a meeting with a sponsor?" He hands me a file on a woman named Firmina Sanders. "She's a nice lady. You'll like her. She'll like you. Maybe we can get Babra and Nell some shelter if I get some calls in. Or at least a blanket."  
  
"All right." I bite my lip. "Haymitch, your sponsors at Daughters of the Founding think, um -- "  
  
He grins. "That I'm bringing a girl home to meet them?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"Well, let 'em down easy. They're decent folk. They just want me to be happy."  
  
"It's not a bad goal," I suggest. "You might try it."  
  
He snorts a little laugh. "Yeah. Any day now." His grin broadens into a smile, and he shakes his head. I suspect that I'm more aware than he is of the way his eyes are traveling over me. "Don't worry about things like that, Effie. Not your job. Miss Sanders, on the other hand, _is_ your job, and she wants to meet at her house. Can you make it in half an hour?"  
  
I look at the address. We're practically on top of it here, so I nod.  
  
"Good," Haymitch says. "And you go home and get some rest after. I might call in the middle of the night if I need to sleep, now that I have an escort I can trust to answer."  
  
"Okay." I start to leave, then turn. "I should probably warn you -- Miss Meadowbrook is my housemother, and she might pick up."  
  
He clenches his teeth. "Good warning. Thanks."  
  
"I don't think she'd mind talking to you, for what it's worth."  
  
"I know," he says quietly. "But… you try to pick up, okay? I mean, if you're in. If you want to go out and get some air, you're allowed, you know? As long as I can reach you somehow."  
  
"Okay. Next year, I'll have my own place. And my own line."  
  
He nods, and I slip out of the Viewing Center. No one notices me.  
  
It takes me five minutes to get to the Sanders home. It's an old section of town known as the Grove, where families who made their fortunes before the Dark Days built their personal playgrounds. Most of them held onto their money with iron fists, and survived the war comfortably, though they lost sons and daughters in the fighting. The ones who were left held onto the land and houses, and their families stayed on. At first, they were the social leaders of the Capitol, and their names are well-represented in government circles even now, but they didn't change with the times.  
  
They're behind things socially, a favorite target of young comics. I remember a string of skits a few years back postulating Grove fashions, which always seemed to have collars that went up high enough to hide the face, skirts that hid the ankles, and, most weeks, different sorts of elaborate locks to go around ladies' knees, and on the zippers of gentlemen's pants (no keys necessary, since no one's looking to unlock them). I don't think anyone under the age of fifty lives here, and the younger people who moved out always complain about how staid and prudish it is. Most of the old people left are the ones who never did join the new world, who were left behind and left alone, with only each other and their ever-present fancy animals to keep them company. They watch sappy shows on television, and are sometimes shown crying over dead tributes. Anyone else caught doing those things is teased mercilessly, and threatened with "ending up a Grover."  
  
Of course, you can only really end up a Grover if you have old money and old manners. While there are certainly a few tasteful gatherings in some of the gardens, and the wine is most likely flowing, there's none of the revelry that exists where the people are younger. The sounds of the conversations barely make it over the garden walls.  
  
Miss Sanders lives in an old stone house with a low, ivy-covered wall around the front yard. Her front door is decorated with blue crystals. When she answers the door, she's carrying a long-haired white cat with a bright red bow on its head. She insists on showing me around her house, which is beautiful, and full of old and lovely things. We finally have tea underneath an imposing portrait of her great-great-grandmother, who made her fortune inventing the neurotechnology that was eventually adopted to control mutts.  
  
"At the time, it was just a curiosity," Miss Sanders says. "They grew animals in labs, and the brains didn't develop properly, so she made the little chips to compensate. And it turned out that they could be controlled." She sighs. "It's the sort of thing that would be invented in District Three, now. Her son, my great-grandfather, swore loyalty to the Capitol, which is why we weren't exiled out there with her friends. But it's sad how very few things we invent for ourselves these days, don't you think?"  
  
"We have the arts," I remind her. "And nearly all of the communications technology. And there in Three, they can work with each other with less interference from the business end of things. At least that's what they say in school."  
  
"I suppose," she says, then smiles. "Now, I imagine you want to talk about money. I've been watching, of course. What does young Mr. Abernathy think the girl will need? Or is he saving aside this year, in case she makes it to the end and needs something expensive?"  
  
I get out the supply list and show Miss Sanders the things we think she'll need. None of it is in the price range of a single sponsor -- even a sponsor as wealthy as she is -- but she does get me about a quarter of the way to a canvas sheet, which Babra and Nell can set up to protect them from the rain while they sleep. She says that she's saving some in abeyance, in case Babra makes it to the end. Apparently, she did the same for Haymitch in his year, and was able to contribute toward the ice pack and pain killers he needed to finish things off.   
  
"I was so glad he won," she says. "I hate it when we lose the clever ones. Such a waste." Something in her eyes goes far away, and she sighs deeply. "It's a _horrible_ waste. The war. Everything after. I still hate District Thirteen for what they did to this country. It wasn't like this before the war. I have letters from my ancestors, and journals, and papers. It wasn't like this."  
  
I have heard this sort of talk before, and it makes me nervous. My hands start to sweat. _Of course it wasn't like this_ , I say in my head. _Things change. You have to change with them. You can't be stuck in the past like this._ Of course, I don't say it out loud. She's a sponsor. Contradicting people with money isn't a good idea.  
  
I take care of the paperwork for the donation, and tell her that I need to go get some rest, so I can be available for Haymitch later. She invites me back for a summer picnic she hosts in the neighborhood after the Games. I accept. I know Glass didn't spend much of the year working contacts (and obviously, Haymitch can't do it from Twelve), but maybe I can make sure that we're not starting from scratch at every reaping.  
  
I go back to the Dreams compound and try to sleep, but all of the lights are on outside, and there's a party downstairs. Miss Meadowbrook offers me more pills, but I refuse them, since I promised Haymitch. She rolls her eyes, calls him "silly," and mutters something about glass houses.  
  
I lie awake for a little while, but when Domitia and Leon come in with their friends and start the party here, I give up. I change into a blue shorts set, put on a long wig in a complimentary shade of blue, and go out to join them. We loll around the common area for a while, then Glaucia Shannon suggests heading out to Bacchus Pleasure Park. They don't single me out to invite me along, but I seem to be in the general crowd as we head out, and no one comments on it. I put on an on-call bracelet, in case Haymitch calls and Miss Meadowbrook needs to reach me immediately. I decide that a personal comm will come even before an apartment in the order of spending after the Games.  
  
As we go through the city in Junius Nevin's car, they shout out to the various Games parties that we pass. A woman in a red bikini dances down the street beside us for a while. She has a giant "4" painted on her stomach. We get to the park around nine.  
  
The Games night coverage is playing from giant screens that can be seen anywhere in the park. A few other people from the Dreams compound are going around with snacks and various kinds of stay-awakes. Haymitch didn't _explicitly_ forbid these, but I decide to be more safe than sorry. I'm not tired anyway. Domitia takes a good number of them and passes them out, and within twenty minutes, everyone else seems kind of buzzed. I go on the Ferris wheel with Junius, and he puts his arms around me and tells me that I'm beautiful and everyone should want me like he does. I let him kiss and touch me a little bit -- he's a nice boy, mostly, and I can't think of a good reason to say no to him -- but I'm not sorry when the ride ends and he switches his attention over to Glaucia.   
  
We roam the park together. It's early yet, and things are just getting started. For a while, we watch a fire eater outside a tent, then we ride the Free Fall, which drops us a hundred meters toward the black of the lake, and catches us at what seems like the very last minute. Leon dares me to do the firewalk, because he knows I'm a little scared of fire. I do it. The object is to find which is real fire and which is fake, and to only walk through the fake (there's a first aid station for people who make mistakes). They're all older than I am, and they sneak me into the adult area ("You're two weeks away from eighteen, anyway!"), where pretty girls and boys dance in very little clothing. There are tents off to the side where they do more than dance for you. Domitia doesn't hesitate before picking out a boy with bright purple curls. She waggles her fingers and says, "Go on, Euphemia. Dare-dare-dare!" before she disappears inside.  
  
I don't "dare," though a few of the boys come over and wiggle in my general direction. Of the others, only Leon does go in (he picks a girl in a yellow feathered leotard). I sit at a picnic table with Glaucia and Junius and a handful of other Dreams kids who've joined us. They get wine, but I decide to be safe and not drink, either.  
  
"Haymitch Abernathy is strict about _that_?" a girl named Celsa Forrester asks, and laughs.  
  
"He doesn't drink during the Games," I point out.  
  
"Right, sure he doesn't."  
  
"He _doesn't._ I think I know better than you."  
  
"From a whole two days."  
  
"It's my second year with District Twelve."  
  
Glaucia snorts. "Yeah, and I bet you see everything."  
  
"I see enough."  
  
"How much _are_ you seeing, Euphemia?" Junius asks, wiggling his eyebrows playfully. "You do seem especially... _devoted_." He sticks out his tongue.  
  
I think about the way Haymitch looked at me earlier, and I feel myself blush. I hope they can't tell in the reddish light of the pavilion.  
  
"Spill it, Trinket," Celsa says. "Did you go feral on us?"  
  
"He's not _feral_ ," I tell her.  
  
"Oo, defensive."  
  
"And I'm not… we're not…"  
  
They all laugh, and I want to crawl under the table, even though they don't mean any harm by it. Glaucia actually gives me a hug and leaves her arm around me. "I think we're embarrassing Euphemia. Don't you worry about them, honey."  
  
"Yeah, forget about it," a boy named Numerian says. "We all know you've got the most boring sex life this side of District Three. What about the _Games_? Anything exciting we're not seeing?"  
  
"Oh, if it were exciting, they'd find a way to show it," I say.   
  
"Really?"  
  
Of course it's not at all true. I'm pretty sure they'd be riveted by Harris's story about the murder in Four. I smile and say, "Sure. Mostly what we're seeing is just them walking around in the swamp and trying to find a dry place to sit down." I point up at the screen, where Daylily is staying up in her shelter, trying to fashion a weapon from the shell of a turtle that she ate for dinner. "This is pretty much it. They edit the exciting things together for mandatory viewing."  
  
"Oh, come on, nothing?" Junius leans in and flutters his eyelashes at me. "I'll be good. I won't tell on you."  
  
Given that we're out in the open and there are probably cameras and microphones hidden around here, I doubt he'd _have_ to tell anyone. But I'm not going to tell him anyway. I had to sign an agreement about that. "Really, any time Claudius Templesmith comes on like this " -- I point at the screen, which has just switched over to studio coverage -- "it's because no one is doing anything interesting."  
  
"Well, let's see what old Cloud-head's rambling on about, anyway," Glaucia says, and turns on the sound at the table. It comes from little speakers embedded in the furniture.  
  
"…are all settling in for the night," Claudius tells us. "Let's learn more about our environment…"  
  
"AAAAGH!" Numerian screams, flailing. "Geography lesson! No!"  
  
Claudius goes through the various features of real swamps, even shows a few around the world, and talks about the normal dangers of predators -- "I'm sure you've noticed a lot of mutts this year!" But the predators aren't the only dangers, not at all. The water can abruptly become deep. Sitting water attracts diseases (it sounds like Claudius is really hoping for a good plague). It's easy to get lost and disoriented. It's difficult to move. He shows a compilation of tributes falling in the mud.  
  
"Hey, isn't that first one from Twelve?" Junius says. "The idiot who just fell on his face at the Cornucopia?"  
  
"Another tribute drowned him," I say. "Trill wasn't an idiot. He was a nice boy."  
  
"He tripped on his own feet and drowned in three inches of water." Junius looks at me oddly. "Are you okay, Euphemia?"  
  
"Fine. Trill was nice."  
  
He holds up his hands in surrender. "Okay. Nicest guy around."  
  
"Another danger in swamps," Claudius goes on importantly, "is quicksand, or more accurately, 'quickmud,' a non-Newtonian fluid that appears nearly solid at first glance, but can immobilize, incapacitate, and even kill unsuspecting wanderers. And, yes…" He listens to something on his earpiece, then looks up with great solemnity. "Yes, I thought one of our tributes was getting close. Here we find District Seven tribute Sebastian Jakes, who believes he has finally found a safe campsite, but the very ground beneath him has become saturated and unstable. Will he make it out in time?"  
  
The coverage cuts to Sebastian, who has fallen into a light sleep in a sheltered, lagoon-like area. He rolls over in his sleep, and the movement seems to break the world open.  
  
He wakes up to find himself partially sunk in the suddenly viscous mud beneath him. He flails wildly as Claudius tells us in a voiceover that this is precisely what he _shouldn't_ do, and that a boy from Seven should know that, having spent his life in the woods.   
  
"He's just waking up," I say. "How could he remember anything?"  
  
He tries to scramble forward and up, trying not to scream and bring attention to himself, which is a bit more aware than I think _I'd_ be, but he can't find purchase. He's upright now, but the mud has already come up over his stomach, and it's rising fast. Too fast. I've never seen quicksand, but I don't think any kind of sand, or mud, would be this… _aggressive._ I remember Mr. Hedge saying that he'd be keeping an eye on Sebastian, because of tricks. It's…  
  
"Look at him!" Celsa says, pointing at the screen and laughing. She mimes his struggles by waving her arms around wildly, causing the others to laugh.  
  
I am the only one watching the screen when he goes all the way under, and the cannon goes off.  
  
"Hey, Euphemia, what's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing," I say. I glance at my on-call bracelet, which is silent, then cover it up with my hand and say, "Oh, Haymitch is calling. I have to go."  
  
"Need a ride?" Junius asks.  
  
"I'll take a taxi."  
  
I run for the exit. I don't know why I can't seem to stay. This is all normal. I'm the one acting different. I'm the one being a stick-in-the-mud. I know that. And I know I can't stand to be here anymore. I don't want to look up at the dance pavilion and see my remaining tribute sucked into the mud with no warning.  
  
I catch a cab and go straight to the Viewing Center, not thinking until after I get there that I'm just not dressed for it. I look like a kid in my long, loose wig and my shorts.  
  
But I don't want to go home. I'll go back tomorrow and pack a bag for the rest of the Games.  
  
I get inside and go upstairs. Haymitch and Mr. Hedge are both at the table. Mr. Hedge looks upset, and I guess he's just called Sebastian's family.  
  
I go to them.  
  
Haymitch looks up, surprised. "I didn't call you," he says.  
  
I look at Mr. Hedge. "I saw what happened. I'm very sorry about Sebastian."  
  
He smiles. "Thank you, Effie," he says, then looks at Haymitch. "Keep this one."  
  
"What are you really doing here?" Haymitch asks.  
  
"I decided I'd rather be here," I tell him. "Sorry I'm not dressed right."  
  
He nods. "Don’t worry about it. Blight's escort went home for the night. Do you think you could get the budget together for us?"  
  
"Okay. Did you want to get some sleep?"  
  
"Yeah. I do. Wake me in an hour or so, okay?"  
  
I nod, and take our donation books and the ones from District Seven. Sebastian's and Trill's sponsors all signed to have money moved to the other tribute in case of death. Even with Miss Sanders's donation, we don't have enough for a real tent, like the inner districts have, but we're getting close to that canvas tarp. I can't really get to anyone else until morning. They're up and they may call, but if I call them in the middle of their parties for anything other than an emergency, I'll probably risk their sponsorship for next year. I get the alliance papers in order with the new financial information, and send it upstairs to the Gamemakers, so they'll know our resources. By the time I'm finished, it's been an hour, and I go back into the mentor's lounge, where I find Haymitch sprawled out on one of the curtained beds. I wake him up. He insists that I take a sleeping shift. I crawl into the bed he's vacated, and drowse off within minutes.  
  
I dream about Sebastian, and wake myself up twice trying to escape quickmud, but I finally manage to stay asleep. I dream about my last day of school, about going in and seeing my picture broadcast on every wall, bleeding and crying, while Junius laughs at how stupid I look. This time, Haymitch and Mr. Hedge keep me safe, and get me out of school, and I feel like they're going to make sure it never happens again.  
  
Mr. Hedge wakes me up around four, and tells me that there's breakfast in the dining lounge. He takes a turn sleeping.   
  
I'm not hungry. I go back out onto the floor, meaning to go right back to my table, but I see that my seat is full.  
  
Caesar Flickerman is sitting in it, having what looks like a very serious talk with Haymitch.  
  
I look down at myself. I am not dressed to see the head of the Games production team, my boss. Not when I look even younger than I am, not when I obviously spent part of the evening at the parties.  
  
I try to sneak around behind them, but it brings me very close, close enough to hear what they're saying.  
  
"She's a _kid_ ," Haymitch says. "She's good at what she does, but why would you throw her in here with this craziness?"  
  
"Because she's good at what she does. Because you needed someone you could trust, and I needed someone _I_ could trust to take care of you." Mr. Flickerman smiles. "I figured it would be a nice change from Glass."  
  
"She's not ready to deal with this. She's on that happy gas they give out at Capitol Dreams. She's innocent. She's not prepared."  
  
"She's older than you were."  
  
"That's not a recommendation." Haymitch rearranges some papers on the table. "A kid of seventeen doesn't need to be hanging around in a room full of killers. I didn't need it when I was seventeen, that's for sure, but I didn't have a choice."  
  
"She does. And she appears to have made it."  
  
Haymitch sighs. "What's your game, Caesar? I know you're playing one, but you're a lot more subtle about it than they are." He points upstairs, toward the Gamemakers' headquarters.  
  
"Why would I be playing games with you? What do you think the object is?"  
  
"No idea."  
  
Mr. Flickerman considers all of this carefully. "If I do have a goal, it's just to keep you sane."  
  
"Too late."  
  
"You're not crazy. You should be, but you're not." He shrugs. "I figured you could use someone you'd actually care about, who'll still be here next year."  
  
"You're trying to make me love the Capitol, aren't you? Like with the library. And the museum. And the parks. You think I'll take one look at some sweet, pretty girl and figure the Capitol must be great after all."  
  
"I wouldn't mind seeing you admit that there are things here worth loving. But I wanted to find you an escort you could trust because I think you deserve to be surrounded by good people who have your best interests at heart. Nothing more nefarious than that. And Miss Trinket is a good person who proved to me that she'd act in your best interests, so I hired her." He looks up, directly at me, and smiles. "Though she needs to improve her eavesdropping skills, or wear a somewhat duller wig."  
  
I put my hand over my face. "I'm sorry. I was… I was going to go home and get more suitable clothes and I just heard… I should have said something."  
  
"Yeah, you should have," Haymitch says. "But don't worry about it. And let me know if you figure out Caesar's game."  
  
"I think he told you his game," I say.  
  
"Aw, you don't actually believe Caesar, do you? He's the best storyteller in the Capitol."  
  
"That's because I tell the truth," Mr. Flickerman says, and stands up. "Now, I'd best get back to the studio. I'm producing a piece on literary swamps. It'll be fascinating." He tips an invisible hat to me.  
  
I take my seat. Before Haymitch and I can talk about what I overheard -- if he even means to -- the phone rings for the first time of the second day. I pick it up and get back to work.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie and Haymitch become closer -- and further apart -- after a tragic day in the arena.

By the time morning really comes to the arena, we've managed to scrape together enough for the tarp. Babra and Nell, who've been huddling under a large-leafed tree, are very grateful for it. They take turns actually being able to sleep. Haymitch has been scribbling in the sponsor book; I'm not sure why.  
  
Another mutt attack wakes them at mid-morning, and a weird, hovering fire nearly leads Harris Greaves into the deep water, thinking he's after other tributes. "Why isn't anyone seeing this?" Mr. Hedge asks. "It's worse than that lion."  
  
"No one knows Glass is dead," Haymitch says. "And they're hitting three districts that no one thinks have anything to do with each other outside an occasional alliance."  
  
Mr. Hedge grinds his teeth.  
  
A little bit after lunch, Mr. Hedge is called away by Peacekeepers. His escort, Barnabas Laird, takes over for him, and starts calling sponsors, loudly asking for money for matches.  
  
Haymitch grimaces. "They'll give away their position. Blight _has_ to know better."  
  
"They're _cold_ ," I point out.  
  
"Better cold and alive than warm and dead." He sighs and rubs his forehead. "This one's got a chance, Effie," he says. "She's playing smart, and she's playing to the cameras. She could _do_ it, if I can just keep her from doing anything stupid."  
  
He pulls out the sponsor book, and I see that he hasn't been totaling numbers and figuring costs. He's drawn the rough map of the arena that we got when the broadcast began, and he's been plotting where all of the tributes are. The official maps only track our own. Every now and then, the public broadcast will show a glimpse of more than one group, but that's when they're playing it for the potential fight. Only the Gamemakers know where _everyone_ is.  
  
"Look," he says, pointing to the scribbled stars that represent Babra and Nell. "They don't see it, but they're down in a bowl. And over here" -- he points to a nearby set of stars -- "The alliance from Three, Eight, and Ten. Those districts play fair enough, but it's perfectly fair to take advantage of a mistake." He leans forward with his head in his hands.  
  
Again, I consider the wisdom of putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. This time, it seems all right, so I do it. He reaches back and covers it with his own.  
  
I don't want to spoil it, and risk him being angry at me, but I also need to protect the alliance. "Haymitch…?" I start.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Maybe…"  
  
He lets go of my hand and raises an eyebrow. "Maybe what?"  
  
"Maybe Mr. Hedge doesn't realize. Maybe… you need to stop thinking he's reading your mind."  
  
"How could he not see that? I guarantee Chaff sees it." He looks over at the next table. "Did you notice that I have neighbors?"  
  
"What am I, blind?" Chaff asks. "I taught you that map trick."  
  
"See?" Haymitch says.  
  
"I don't think Mr. Hedge has mapped out where the other alliance is."  
  
"But they're -- "  
  
"And it all looks alike… to people who aren't in your head, anyway. He may not have any idea how close they are."  
  
He frowns, and I can almost see him formulating an argument. Then he waves his hand wearily and says, "Yeah, maybe. I'll talk to Blight when he gets back. We've got plenty in common, but we've never been allies before."  
  
"Good," I say.  
  
He goes back to his map, not even looking at me, and says, "And Effie?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Don't get skittish on me. It's annoying, and if you see something important and don't say it, I could _miss_ something important."  
  
"You won't be mad?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, I'll be mad. But don't be afraid of that. It'll blow over."  
  
"Before or after you swing a knife at me?"  
  
"I'll only swing a knife at you if you startle me awake, and that won't be because I'm mad. I really don't make a habit of trying to kill my allies."   
  
There's nothing else to say. The phone rings, and I start taking sponsor calls again. Babra and Nell catch a lizard and eat it raw for lunch. The inner district alliance catches up to Planter, and, though he tries to get them to let him join their group, trying to amuse them and make them laugh, they don't end up showing him any mercy. Chaff goes to call his family, but comes back to keep helping Seeder with Daylily.  
  
District Six loses its remaining tribute late in the afternoon, when he wanders into Athena Burke, from Five, who turns out to be less nervous in the arena than she was on Caesar's stage. He's her first kill, and it seems to give her a boost in energy. She hunts down the girl from Nine as well, then, wild-eyed, climbs a tree and waits for prey.  
  
About the time that they're serving us dinner, there's a skirmish between the two big alliances -- the five inner district kids, and the cobbled together alliance with Three, Eight, and Ten. Catawba takes a wound, but survives. The other alliance is cut in half, leaving only the boys from Eight and Ten.  
  
It's only the second day, and we're down to nine tributes. At least one of our girls will make the final eight.  
  
"They'll slow it down now," Haymitch says, leaning back. "They have to. No one will be satisfied if it keeps going this fast." He doesn’t sound as sure as usual. "They'll go for some human drama. Maybe see if the career districts will keep Ca--" He stops talking and nearly jumps to his feet. "Blight!"  
  
I turn around and stifle a scream. Mr. Hedge is back, and he's covered in blood. He's managed to wipe his face, so there's just a brownish red smear, but his clothes are drenched.  
  
"Are you hurt?" Haymitch asks.  
  
"No. Are they?" He nods at the screen, where Nell and Babra are trying to figure out how many times they've heard the cannon.  
  
"Yeah, but --"  
  
Mr. Hedge points at his clothes in a disgusted way. "Not mine," he says. "They dumped it on me. All the genetic screening samples. Seems someone has it in his head that I faked Gia's genetic code in the records they're checking against, and that's why they're not finding her. They drenched me and I've been smelling it for five hours now."  
  
"Do you have a change of clothes?" I ask. "If not, I can go get you something…"  
  
"I got clothes upstairs, but I wanted to make sure the girls were still okay. I haven't had any access."  
  
Haymitch nods. "The other alliances are going the other direction now, too. Maybe we could think about matches, if you figure they're smart enough not to actually send up a flare."  
  
He looks at Barnabas. "How's the money looking?"  
  
"We should have enough as soon as --"  
  
On screen, Babra lets loose a scream.  
  
Something very large is rising out of the swamp, so close that it dislodges the props they've put up under their tarp. I can't tell what it is -- it's covered with vines and muck.  
  
"Stay still!" Haymitch yells uselessly at the screen.  
  
The girls run wildly into the swamp, tripping and falling into the mud.  
  
It takes the inner district alliance about a minute to find them. The fight is brutal and short. Catawba, already wounded, falls to Babra, but the rest are on our girls like hyenas in a pack.  
  
The cannons go off.  
  
Haymitch and Mr. Hedge stare at the main screen, at the sudden darkness on their table screens. I can't seem to breathe properly. Only a few minutes ago, we were talking about sending them matches. Haymitch was saying that Babra had a chance. The truth doesn't seem real. My mind keeps trying to turn away from it, to make it like every other Games. It happens every year. Tributes just make mistakes and lose.  
  
 _They all die, you know. They don't come back. You're calling them to die._  
  
Haymitch moves first. He storms to the booths to call Babra's family, though I'm sure they're watching even before mandatory viewing, and they must already know. I look at Mr. Hedge, still covered in congealing blood, picking unconsciously at his clothes. "You can't call the family until you change your clothes," I tell him. It's crazy, but it's the only thing I can think of. "At least your shirt."  
  
He pulls off the bloody shirt and tosses it aside. "Barnabas?" he asks.  
  
His escort pulls off his shirt and hands it over.  
  
"Thank you. And you should have been the one to remind me."  
  
He goes to the booth.  
  
Barnabas glares at me.  
  
I don't care.  
  
Haymitch comes back. His eyes are unfocused and glassy. I start to reach out to him, but he goes around me, hooks his fingers under the table, and flips it over, scattering equipment and papers everywhere. "That was _deliberate!_ " he shouts.  
  
"Haymitch, you want to sit down," Chaff says.  
  
" _Hell_ I do."  
  
"You need to -- "  
  
"I've had it, Chaff. I can't…" He goes quiet, and storms off.  
  
Chaff looks at me. "Honey, you better go after him."  
  
"But you know him better."  
  
"I'm likely to let him talk me into whatever he's doing. You calm him down. I've seen you do it."  
  
"But --"  
  
"Your credentials are impeccable. They won't bother you. Honey, you need to keep him from doing any useless damage."  
  
I go after him.   
  
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirrors above the doors as I go outside. I do not look like a woman in a responsible position, who's been charged with keeping a very angry victor from doing something self-destructive. I am still dressed in a child's clothes, and I look like a schoolgirl who is about to start crying. I force myself not to think about any of it. I go out into the bright, late afternoon sun.  
  
I find Haymitch in the middle of Headquarters Plaza, behind the media pens. They haven't noticed him yet. They certainly haven't noticed that, somewhere between the tables and here, he's picked up a knife. Luckily, the press corps is avidly following an interview with the District Two mentor right now, and haven't noticed Haymitch standing behind them.  
  
I come up behind him, staying out of range of his arms. "Haymitch," I say.  
  
His hand tightens on the knife. "Go away, Effie."  
  
"You promised not to swing knives at me."  
  
"Do you see it swinging at you?"  
  
I touch his arm. "Please. Come with me. You have to get out of here. What do you think you're going to do?"  
  
"What I'm good at. Only thing I've ever been better at than anyone else."  
  
"You _can't_. You're not in the arena."  
  
"Right. Sure I’m not." He finally turns and looks at me. "It's _all_ the arena. I never left. I'll never leave."  
  
"You _did_ leave. You're not there anymore." I reach out and take his empty hand, then carefully, hold my hand out for the knife. "You're on the outside. Just give me the knife, okay? Let's not do anything crazy. There'll be kids next year who'll need you."  
  
"You're perfectly capable of babysitting them until they die, Euphemia. You're very talented. You can make up for whatever idiot they put in as a mentor. You do it. I'm done."  
  
"They'll need someone who really understands. Haymitch, please give me the knife."  
  
He doesn't give it to me, but he does throw it off to one side. He lets go of my hand and walks away. There's a low fountain nearby, and he sits down on the edge, the strength seeming to bleed out of him.  
  
I sit down beside him and put my arm across his shoulders. He doesn't dislodge it.  
  
"How can you stand this?" he asks. "You're a decent person. You're… _nice_. You're actually _nice_. How can you stand to be part of this? How can you not be crazy from it? Why would you volunteer to be part of it?"  
  
"It's my job," I say. "I have to work. And there are good parts. I get to help you. That's a good part."  
  
"Oh, yeah. That's a real perk. Keep me from killing anyone. You have a weird sense of 'good,' Euphemia."  
  
I don't know what to say, so I move my hand and rub the back of his neck. I have a vague memory of my mother doing this when I was small. It seems to calm him down a little.  
  
After a while, he looks up at the giant Games screen that's set up over the plaza. On it, Claudius is talking about how the betting odds have changed since the sudden bloodbaths of the afternoon. Harris, always a strong runner, now has the clear lead. Daylily is considered a longshot, but if she wins, it will be a huge payoff. He mentions jovially that Babra had been one of the heavier favorites among the betting crowd, and now, people have to pay up. There was some question about the final eight, and who made it, since three people died at roughly the same time. The Gamemakers have, in fact, declared Babra to be in seventh place, so anyone who bet on her to make the top third has pulled at least a little money out of the deal.  
  
Something is tightening in my chest. I look around, try to find anything else to look at. There's a juggler near the media tower. He has five flaming clubs. I watch. The world seems to be caught in prisms, and there are twenty clubs now, and four jugglers. Strange, doubled dancers in sequined costumes perform for the Games crowd.  
  
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, the world is in singles again.  
  
Haymitch is still staring at the screen. He looks ill. "What's wrong with this place?" he hisses.   
  
"I don't know."  
  
"You tell me, Effie. You live here. You love it here. How can it be like this? You have everything you want here. Why…" He shakes his head. "It's all a cover. The libraries. The museums. It's all a cover for… _that_." He gestures at the screen in disgust.  
  
"No! Those things are real, too. And the lake, and the nice old ladies in the Grove, and the art, and…" I stand up. "Come on, Haymitch. Let's get you out of here. Let me show you something."  
  
"I don't want to."   
  
"I know, but you need to get out of here. You need to stop gnawing at your own bones."  
  
"I don't want to go where there are people. I don't think I'd be good with people."  
  
"There are places without people," I tell him, though I have to really think about where they might be. A lot of the museums are deserted most of the time, but from the sound of it, he's not feeling charitable toward them. The only places that are going to be empty are the places where there's nothing happening.  
  
I think about his old ladies. I know them, because I've helped them before -- with the monuments. No one goes to the monuments. There's a huge promenade of statues on the lake shore. Unless the Daughters of the Founding are repairing them -- and they won't be, during the Games -- then no one will be there.  
  
I take his hand and lead him away from the Games Headquarters, slipping by the crowd as unobtrusively as we can. (One excited boy runs up and asks Haymitch for an autograph. I can tell he's angry and wants to lash out, but he manages not to, probably because he can tell that the boy means no harm by it.) I call for a taxi, and ask the driver to take us to Monument Way. He looks at me like I'm crazy, but he doesn't turn down the fare.  
  
It's a long drive, and Haymitch doesn't talk during it. I can see him looking out the windows at the partiers in the street. I see him hating them.  
  
Hating _us_.  
  
Eventually, the taxi takes us out of the middle of the city, through the graceful neighborhoods of the museums and studios. The fashion district has carved out a space beyond the art museum, and I consider pointing out Lepidus's shop, then think better of it. Haymitch may know it, anyway. He watches all of this go by in a dull, disinterested way. The buildings finally stop as we pull into the parking lot at Monument way. The driver lets us out, and I pay by swiping my thumbprint. It's nice to know I have the money to do that now, and I don't need to ask Haymitch to cover anything.  
  
The breeze at the lake shore is cool and gentle, and the gulls circle around, looking for a tasty fish or maybe a bit of someone's garbage. I lead the way into the park. The monuments are huge here -- the statues of the founders, the memorial to the lost pioneers, the dark, abstract shape that commemorates the Catastrophes. A pebbled path leads among them, lined with the president's own roses, and huge, beautiful flowers engineered to catch the eye. Their soft scent fills the air, along with the tang of saltwater from the lake. The path leads down to a flagstone patio that overlooks the water.  
  
"See?" I say. "A little fresh air."  
  
"Yeah. I guess." He walks a little without saying anything, then jerks his chin up at one of the statues. "Who's that?" he asks without much interest. I have the impression that this is his version of being excruciatingly polite.  
  
"The builder," I say. "Arrian James. He was one of the founders. When their group had been wandering through the desert, and they found this place, he was the one who realized they could build it back up -- that everything was here to work with. He directed the first rebuilding projects, and got everyone a safe place to live."  
  
"Oh. Right. I remember the name from school." He points at another one. "That's Laelia Grant, right? The first president?"  
  
"We call her Mother Laelia. I played her once in the Founding Pageant."  
  
"She wanted to take in the wanderers. Feed them. She was a bow-hunter."  
  
Since the statue is equipped with a bow and arrow and shows one of the birds she shot, I suppose this could be a guess rather than knowledge, but he seems to be searching for something other than anger to express, so I just say, "Yes. She was very famous for that."  
  
I expect him to say something cynical about whether or not it's true, or what happened after, but instead he says, "My girl wanted to be a bow-hunter. She was just learning when they killed her."  
  
"I'm sorry, Haymitch."  
  
"Her name was Indigo. Indigo Hardy. Everyone called her Digger. I loved her. I sometimes can't remember what she looked like. In my head, she looks like all of them." He says this without much emotion and starts to walk toward the water again.  
  
I follow.  
  
He doesn't stop until he gets to the far end of the patio, to the decorative little wall that hangs over a drop off to the beach. He looks over it. "Guess I made it to the end again," he says, and bends to pick up a stone. He throws it out into the emptiness, then sits down miserably. He's far away from anywhere he can do any harm, but he doesn't look much better than he did at the plaza. I feel like I should take him somewhere more fun, somewhere that will take his head away from everything that happened, but I don't think he'd come along with me if I tried.  
  
I'm not sure _I'd_ come along with me.  
  
I can't think of anything to do here, and Haymitch is unhelpful, just staring avidly across the water. There's a little automatic kiosk selling cameras for the view, and I buy one. I snap a picture of him there.  
  
He looks up. "What's that about?"  
  
"I don't know. I just… well, I guess I was just looking for something to do."  
  
"Let me see."  
  
Reluctantly -- I have a strange feeling that he means to pitch it into the lake -- I hand him the camera.  
  
He looks at the picture on the little projector, then snorts and hands it back. "I look like the world's most pretentious poet. Do I really look like that?"  
  
"Mostly." I frown. "Don't you see a lot of pictures of yourself?"  
  
"Most of them aren't taken by friendly people. And the ones that are… they're careful to make me look exactly like they want me to."  
  
"What about from when you were a kid?"  
  
He looks up, surprised. "Effie, we didn't have money to keep food on the table, or fix the roof so it wouldn't rain inside, or let in the vermin. Almost no one in Twelve has anything like a camera, not even the merchant kids. Except maybe the shoemakers. They're pretty rich. The mines pay them for boots for everyone."  
  
I look down, thinking of how shamed I felt that I had to wear second-hand clothes, or couldn't afford to have my hair done properly. Somehow, it doesn't seem like all that much. "Sorry," I say.  
  
"What for? It's a different place. Different rules." He sighs. "Look, I know you're trying. And it does clear the head, being out here. But you don't need to entertain me."  
  
"Can I take another picture?"  
  
He forces a grin and says, "No." He pulls the camera back, almost playfully. "I'm taking one. How does this thing work?"  
  
"I'm dressed in _play clothes!_ "  
  
"I can figure it out. We took pictures of Gilla before the interviews. Yeah… the button…"  
  
A gust of wind comes up, and the hair on my long blue wig flies out. I grab at it and laugh at how silly I must look. Haymitch chooses this moment to snap the picture.  
  
He hands me the camera. I look at the picture. If he looks like a pretentious poet, I look like a little girl.  
  
But I haven't seen a picture like this for a while. The last time someone took my picture without me posing carefully for it, I was bloody and crying. Here, I don't quite look happy, laughter notwithstanding. I can't place the look on my face, but I look something like I look in my head.  
  
I put the camera in my pocket. Maybe I'll print it out later.  
  
Haymitch is looking out over the water again. Another gust ripples his clothes and tosses his loose black curls. "What's out there?" he asks.  
  
"District Three is on the far side, I think," I say. I stand beside him, squinting out, wondering what he's seeing.  
  
"Not just the lake, Effie. _Out there._ Is there anything other than this?"  
  
He looks down at me. His eyes are unfocused and red, and something inside of them seems very young. We are standing close enough that the breeze carries his body heat to me before it dissipates.  
  
I kiss him.  
  
It isn't a grand plan. It just seems like the right thing to do.  
  
He draws away, eyes wide, then puts his hands on my face and pulls me back to him, kissing me again, breathing my air like he's been drowning. I slide my arms around his waist and pull him close. I can feel that he wants me, and for once -- for the first time since that day in school -- it's all right with me. His hands come down to my hips, then slide up under my shirt. They're big, good, strong hands, and I’m not afraid that they're going to clamp down and hold me here if I try to get away, and I don't _want_ to get away. I want the kiss to go on forever.  
  
Suddenly, he stops and pulls away from me, putting his hands on the tops of my arms to hold me back. His face is red, and he's breathing hard. I am, too. I can hear our breath, his in counterpoint to mine, above the lake wind.  
  
We stand there for a long while, staring at each other.   
  
Then he starts to laugh.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Haymitch cruelly rebuffs her, Effie considers leaving the Games.

He lets go of me and turns away, locking his hands behind his neck and laughing wildly at the sky. "Is this going to be the fairy tale? Is this where Beauty saves the Beast?" He laughs louder and throws his arms out wide, embracing the air. "She's saved me! Look at that! The victor's all human again because of the power of True Love!" He turns to me. "Is that the story, Euphemia? Is that what you believe?"  
  
I back away. The sun coming off the lake is too bright. It's stabbing at my eyes. I can't breathe.  
  
" _Is_ it?" He laughs again. "Oh, Caesar's good. He's really good. But he forgot that I know those stories too. Only I know better than to believe them! You don't know any better, do you? You're just a kid. You believe everything. You don't know anything. Do you think you know anything?"  
  
I try to say something, but all that comes out is a strangled-sounding squeak. I put my hands on my head, and I half expect them to come away bloody. I take a step back and run into the little wall, and sit down hard.  
  
Haymitch continues to rave. "I know where you live. You live in a fairy tale. Some magical place where they tell you over and over again how good everything is. Feed you those little pills and make you go brainless. Is that what happened? And you want me to go brainless, too?"  
  
"Stop it," I manage to choke out. My face is wet with tears that I didn't even realize I was crying. "Please, stop it."  
  
"Not the way it was supposed to work, is it? I'm supposed to fall in love with you and fall in line! Is that the game, Euphemia? Is it?"  
  
"It wasn't a game!" I say. I can barely hear myself. The words seem to come out over a whistling in my throat. "It wasn't a game. I swear it wasn't a game. I --" I can't seem to sit upright. I bend over and it shifts my weight, and I slide off the wall, down to the flagstones. I cover my head, waiting for the next barrage.  
  
It doesn't come. I stay crouched behind my hands, my eyes covered.  
  
Haymitch's shoes click over on the stones, and I can feel the heat from his body again -- he's obviously crouching in front of me, because I can feel his breath on my hands -- but he doesn't touch me. "Effie?"  
  
"Go away. Leave me alone."  
  
"Effie, I…"  
  
Now he does reach out. I feel his hand hot on my wrist. I turn away. This will end up on television. I'll be all over the screens, crying and broken and dirty. People will laugh. It won't be as bad as Haymitch laughing, but it will be bad.  
  
He touches my ankle.  
  
I yank it away from him.  
  
I hear him take in a deep, sharp breath, then his footsteps recede.  
  
I don't look up.  
  
I curl more deeply into myself. I can't get the sound of the laughter out of my head, even though I cover my ears. I hear his shoes again, but he doesn't come as close this time.  
  
I have been down long enough that I'm starting to come back to my senses when I hear the car door slam. Someone is here. I wonder if someone has more to say to me.  
  
A sharper sound, harder shoes on the flagstones. A voice says, "I'm going to have a long conversation with _you_ later," then the footsteps come closer and the voice, softer but right beside me, says, "Effie, it's okay. It's Caesar. I'm going to take you home."  
  
I lower my hands.  
  
Caesar Flickerman is bent over me, holding out one hand and smiling gently. Beyond him, I can see Haymitch, looking at the ground, his face red and haggard.  
  
Caesar helps me up, and turns so that he's between Haymitch and me. He leads me to his car and puts me carefully into the passenger seat, then gets in on the driver's side.  
  
As we pull away from the park, we pass Haymitch. He looks miserable.  
  
"He called me from the public comm station," Caesar explains. "He told me what he did. I'm so sorry, Miss Trinket. I knew he was volatile. I shouldn't have put you in that position."  
  
I turn to the window. "It's probably me. I shouldn't have kissed him. I'm stupid. I thought he wanted me. Why would he want me?" I wipe my face. "I’m being silly. It's not like he hurt me. He just laughed. I should be used to that. People always laughed at me. The boys at school said I didn't even know what I was doing."  
  
"He most certainly hurt you," Caesar said. "More profoundly than I think he meant to. I want you to take the rest of the Games off, and we'll talk when they're over about what you want to do next."  
  
"They're already over," I say. "Trill and Babra are dead. They didn't _lose_. I called their names, and they died. Just like Haymitch said. They're dead."  
  
We pass a little overlook area, not very well kept up and empty in the middle of the Games. Caesar jerks the car around and pulls into it.  
  
"My car isn't bugged," he says. "I go over it every day. There's no signal coming from it. Nothing attached to the hardware. No power draw on the communications systems. You can say that here. You can say anything here. But be careful what you say where anyone can hear, and _never_ say that at the Dreams compound."  
  
I nod. I'm not stupid, no matter what Haymitch thinks, though I guess it was a little careless to say something like that to Caesar Flickerman, of all people.  
  
He sits back in the driver's seat and rests with his hands on the wheel. "For what it's worth -- and it is, quite frankly, not worth much to me right now -- I think Haymitch lashed out at you out of a misguided sense of protectiveness. He's lost a lot of women." He shakes his head. "It's still inexcusable. I can't reassign you right now. You don't have enough experience."  
  
"What about District Four? I mean, I know I don't have enough experience for an inner district, but isn't someone going to transfer there, and then there'll be a spot open somewhere else? I like Mr. Hedge. Maybe I could go to Seven."  
  
Caesar shakes his head. "I've put a moratorium on female escorts for Blight. We went through three in a row with him after Gia left. I don't hire escorts to keep victors company in the bedroom."  
  
"You told Haymitch you hired me for him."  
  
"Not _that_ way."  
  
I turn and look out the front window, out over the lake. I pull my knees up to my chest and hug them to me. "Why, then?"  
  
"I like Haymitch. Usually. At the moment, I could happily toss him over the rail into the lake, but I usually like him. And he does much better -- again, usually -- with a decent person helping him out." He sighs. "And then there's you. I thought you'd do well with Haymitch."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I've seen you playing dumb, Miss Trinket. I've seen you nodding along with things you know are wrong, and I've seen you pretending not to know things when you clearly do. I've seen you hesitate to mention things you've noticed when you should. I knew Haymitch wouldn't have any patience with that, and you need someone who needs you to be smart. It seemed like a good match." He rolls his eyes. "Apparently, too good." He smiles faintly at me. "It's been a long time since I was young, and I forgot how young you and Haymitch really are. I didn't consider the possibility that you would like one another enough to get into _this_ situation. I should have. And I should have realized what he would do about it. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I just thought you both needed a friend."  
  
I don't say anything. I feel even more stupid for overreacting. "I'm okay," I say. "I know he did it because of his girl. Indigo. He said her name was Indigo. And she died. I should have realized -- "  
  
"Stop it," Caesar says. "You're the injured party in this little scenario. Understand him, that's fine, but don't start blaming yourself for his idiocy. Even he knows that he owns it. When he called me, he didn't say, 'Do you know what that girl did?' He said that he screwed things up, and he wouldn't blame you for wanting to leave, and you probably should. And that you needed a ride home, and he'd watch you and make sure you were okay until I got to you. None of which makes it okay. I just want you to know that everyone knows where the blame is. It's not on you." He looks at me keenly. "Do you need to talk? You seem better, but you were obviously very upset."  
  
"I was being stupid," I repeat.  
  
"No. Did something happen to you? Because I know Haymitch was cruel, but you seem…"  
  
"I'm okay."  
  
"Maybe I can help."  
  
I look at him, and I wonder if I can tell him about what happened before I left school. He's a decent man, and he certainly seems to care about his employees. But he _is_ my boss. It's bad enough he saw me curled up and crying after Haymitch yelled at me. He doesn't need to know about the other. He already thinks I don't have enough experience for a bigger district. What would he think if he knew I went into hysterics just because someone pulled my wig off? "It's nothing," I tell him. "I just don't like to be laughed at."  
  
"Neither does Haymitch," Caesar says. "He, of all people, should know better." He sighs and shakes his head. "Do you want to go home?"  
  
I nod.  
  
He thumbs the ignition, and we start moving again, going through the city streets, around the Games parties and the media crews (Caesar's windows are tinted, so they're unaware of us). He drives me up to the front of the Dreams compound and asks if I need him to come in with me. I consider it. Ten minutes ago, I couldn't have made it up the stairs to my room. In the end, I tell him again that I'm fine. I'll get to "fine" eventually, anyway.  
  
Miss Meadowbrook and Domitia are watching the Games, and it _is_ mandatory viewing, so I sit with them. They're eating chocolate truffles and talking about the fall lines that are starting to come out of the fashion district. A new design house called Devoro has a dried fruit dress that it claims is still edible; Domitia has some bawdy ideas of where to wear it, and exactly who she wants to chew it off of her. She asks who I'd have chew it off.  
  
"Oh, that's not really my style," I say.  
  
"Oh, right, I forgot who I was talking to." She flutters her hand over her chest. "Who would you have ever so delicately nibble it away from you, while whispering sweet nothings into your ear, with romantic music playing in the background?"  
  
"I don't know. It still sounds… kind of sticky."  
  
"That's half the fun, honey," Domitia says.  
  
"Let Euphemia be," Miss Meadowbrook tells her. " _Really_. I agree. And I'll bet it stains your skin, too, and gums up your hair. Not very sexy."  
  
Other than the food trend, there seem to be quite a few houses coming out with pretty little tights that show the sides of the ankles, and a selection of pastel shades in wigs. The other big trend is shabby -- ragged shirts and work clothes, made to look like District laborers. These wouldn't be for professional wear, anyway. They help me place orders. I have money now, plus my fashion stipend to keep on top of things, so I can get most of the things I want. Some of the truly pricey things, I might even be able to borrow for events, as long as I promise to have my picture taken.  
  
Miss Meadowbrook realizes that I'm upset somewhere after the third catalog, though I don't tell her why, and promptly calls in what she calls "reinforcements" -- half the occupants of the compound, by the looks of it. They tell me that they love me, and they're glad to have me. I take one of Miss Meadowbrook's little miracle pills, and it clears my head enough to realize that things are all right. If the worst thing to happen in my life is having a district boy laugh at me, I'm doing pretty well.  
  
I watch the evening's broadcast curled up in Junius's arms, and I let him touch me as he likes. I'm _not_ a romance-addled little girl, no matter what Haymitch thinks.  
  
Athena Burke gets one more kill before dying when the ground gives out beneath her. The inner district pack finds Daylily. The people betting on her are interviewed in the street.   
  
Junius makes a disgusted sound. "There go this week's tips," he mutters. "I guess it was a longshot, anyway."  
  
Harris Greaves is attacked by another mutt not long after this, but he defeats it. Domitia thinks he's cute.  
  
By the end of mandatory viewing, we're down to the inner district kids (down the boy from Two), and Gershom Grimm from District Ten.  
  
I help Miss Meadowbrook clean up.  
  
"Do you feel better, sweetheart?" she asks.  
  
"I feel clearer," I say. "Like things are where they're supposed to be again."  
  
"It wasn't just about your tributes, was it?"  
  
I shake my head.  
  
She hugs me. "It's all right. I've been there. The man has the emotional intelligence of a head of cabbage."  
  
"He yelled at me."  
  
"Haymitch? Really?" She makes a frustrated sound. "Well, you can't let him get away with doing that. You need to stand up. You're a Capitol citizen, in a responsible job. You need to show him that you can straighten your back and look up again."  
  
"I don't even want to see him."  
  
"I've been _there_ , too. I was angry at him. I don't remember why." She frowns. "But you have to let him know that you're not broken. He thinks we Capitol girls are fragile. He thinks _I'm_ broken."  
  
"You?"  
  
"Yes, me. Do I look broken to you?" She rolls her eyes hugely. "But the last time I saw Haymitch, he looked at me like he was holding one of those maudlin district funerals for me in his head. You need to get up on your feet and not let him think that, or he'll just dismiss you altogether."  
  
I don't know if I can do this, or even if it's a good idea. I go to bed, but whatever is in the pills keeps me awake. I can hear the parties through the windows. People in costumes, carrying sparklers and twinkly little bell-showers, are passing by outside.  
  
This is my city, my home.  
  
I think of Babra, covered in coal dust, and of Trill, wanting to hide as much as he could. I think of him drowning in the mud at the Cornucopia. I think of the way Babra grabbed hold of my hand after I called her name.  
  
She's gone now, too. Headed home in a box.  
  
And I am awake and pitying myself because Haymitch raised his voice at me after I kissed him without so much as asking whether or not it was all right. I am worrying about my career, and where I might end up. I'm thinking about clothes. And they are still dead.  
  
I toss and turn for the rest of the night. I'm not the only one. Toward the end of the Games, there are always a lot of people who stay up. I get up around three o'clock, put a simple wig on and go outside and sit on the curb in front of the compound. People are wandering around with their eyes unnaturally bright, their smiles so wide that they suggest the skulls beneath them. They pass around pills and bottles, and whoop and holler at the night sky. These Games seem like they'll be short -- no one is really hidden now -- but during the longer Games, the hospitals start filling up with partiers who haven't paid attention to what they've been taking. There are public service announcements about how the Games are meant to celebrate the ongoing life of the Capitol, despite the attempt to kill it, and how Capitol citizens shouldn't risk those precious saved lives… but I don't remember any year where the Games went on for more than a week and a half that there haven't been at least a few deaths from the party scene.   
  
When I was twelve, not long after my parents' marriage contract expired and my father moved out, there was an outright suicide. A woman climbed to the top of the Green Tower monument -- the spire that stands where the bombed out school was -- and jumped to her death. The story in the papers was that she'd placed a bet on a losing tribute and lost everything, but the whispered story, the one that never saw the light of day on the air, was that she'd gone crazy, and decided the girl was her own stillborn child, miraculously brought back to life, only to be killed again. No one could imagine how she thought a skinny District girl with no particular talent was really a Capitol child.  
  
I don't remember what I thought at the time. But now, I understand it. Babra could have been my sister. I honestly don't see any reason that she couldn't be.  
  
I shiver. I understand why the Games have to happen. I know about the war. I know how many people died in the Dark Days (once, after I was angry about a tribute's death, I had to spend a whole afternoon in school writing the number down over and over until it sank in), and I know we can't let it happen again. Even the districts are better off for not letting another war happen. They lost almost half their population, too.  
  
 _Leave the Games._  
  
The thought comes smoothly, and out of nowhere.  
  
It's a good solution. No one is forcing me to stay. I'm sure Caesar Flickerman will give me a good recommendation to some other boss. I could wait tables at a restaurant, or maybe even manage the schedule. I could work for one of the design houses. I could do _anything_.  
  
I could go back to being like everyone else. Watching the Games, rooting for the prettiest and strongest ones, or the ones with the wonderful stories. I'd _never_ have to look at Haymitch Abernathy again, or hear him call me names and accuse me of… I don't even know what he thought I was doing.  
  
Only, in the end, it's not about Haymitch, is it?  
  
 _They outrank me_ , he told me on the day of the Reaping, when Babra needed someone to hold her hand.  
  
I go to the front steps and lean against the wall of the compound, resting but not sleeping, until dawn. The parties go on around me. Sometimes, people bring me things to eat. I take them.  
  
I'm not aware of thinking. My head is glassy from lack of sleep, but sleep is never really close. I let my city spin around me.  
  
I am calm in the morning.  
  
I throw out yesterday's play clothes, and put on a smart yellow dress, with a contrasting green wig done up in a more grown-up style. I paint my face.  
  
I go to work.  
  
I don't have to. There's nothing for me to do, but I think some limits need to be set.  
  
Haymitch is in the Viewing Center, looking somewhat at a loss with no one to help. Surprisingly, he's not drunk. I suppose I thought he'd be half passed out back at the training center apartment. His eyes tip up in my direction, at first not recognizing me and moving on, but then he looks back.  
  
He stands perfectly still and looks at his feet.  
  
I go to him. "We should talk," I say.  
  
He nods, and we go to one of the empty sponsor meeting rooms. With so few tributes left, there are plenty to go around. He sits down at a table. I sit across from him. He is fiddling with something on his wrist -- an old, colorless knotted string with two buttons tied onto it. His old district token.  
  
"Effie," he starts, "I'm sorry. I know you asked Caesar for a transfer, and if one comes up, I'll write you a good recommendation."  
  
I nod. "I don't have enough experience for another district. And the tributes from District Twelve need an escort they can trust."  
  
He nods. "I want…" He forces himself to look up at me. "I want you to stay."  
  
"I'll stay," I say. I screw up my courage. I think of Babra jumping on the back of that gator mutt. If she can face that, I can face an ill-tempered victor. "But I won't be berated. Do you understand that? Don't ever do that again, or I'll quit my job in the middle of the Games, no matter who needs me."  
  
"I was going to promise --"  
  
"I'm not going to believe a promise. I'll believe what I see."  
  
"You'll _see_ , then, if you like that better. It won't happen again."  
  
I can't think of what else I mean to say. I feel like I should end with some kind of dramatic exit, telling him that it's not about him, that I don't care at all about what happened before he started yelling yesterday. I don't do it.   
  
He bites his lip. "Effie, there's something else that can't happen again."  
  
My courage breaks. It goes off inside me like a squeezed balloon, sending out little bursts of fear flying randomly around my body. "The kiss," I say.  
  
"The kiss," he repeats.  
  
I sniff and try to speak coldly, but it comes out shaky. "No worries. I promise, I won't be doing _that_ again."  
  
"They'd take you away in a heartbeat."  
  
I frown. "You're paranoid."  
  
He holds up his hand. "This string belonged to Digger. They fried her on an electric fence. That's not paranoia."  
  
I look away from it.  
  
Something touches my arm.  
  
The string is sitting against my wrist. I look up. "What…?"  
  
"I want you to keep it for me," he says. "And if I ever come close to doing anything as lousy as I did yesterday, you show it to me, and you remind me that it's not the way she'd ever have me treat a girl. She'd walk right out on me if she heard about it."  
  
I move my hand slowly and pick it up. It has a queerly substantial feel to it, even though it's frayed and faded, and probably wasn't all that strong in the first place. I put it on. It's sized to his wrist and comes halfway up my forearm, but I don't let it fall off. "I'll do it, you know," I say. "I'll hold Indigo over your head." I don't know if I will or not. I probably won't. But he's given me this ghost-girl as an ally, and I don't have so many that I can refuse to work with any of them.  
  
"And I'll deserve it." He rubs his head absently. "Look, I know Caesar gave you the rest of the Games off. You don't need to be here. I'll work my contacts while I'm here."  
  
"I'll work them off-season," I tell him. "I'm already going to a picnic in the Grove. And I think I can get you some people I know in the fashion district."  
  
"That would be great."  
  
This isn't how the conversation is supposed to end. Mundanity and shop talk seem somehow off-kilter… but at the same time, they're not.  
  
I stand and go to the door.  
  
"Effie?"  
  
"What?" I look over my shoulder.  
  
He smiles at me awkwardly. "It was a great kiss. Just… if you care."  
  
"I know," I say. "I was there for it, remember?"  
  
There's nothing else to say.  
  
I leave the Viewing Center to go home. I don't come back for the rest of the Games.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The 59th Games end, and Effie goes back to her life in the Capitol.

The Games go on for another four days, though they're mostly taken up by the inner district alliance's unsuccessful hunt for the boy from District Ten. They are routinely attacked by mutts, but they've clearly learned to deal with it. At one point, Harris cuts the head off of a mutt bird (not unlike the birds that attacked Maysilee Donner, though white instead of pink) and shakes it at the sky. He yells something, but we don't hear what it is. There's a great deal of speculation on the street about what he says. Having been privy to a few of his outbursts, I'm guessing it had something to do with the District Four genetic sweep, but of course, that's not public knowledge. They haven't even mentioned Glass's death yet.  
  
Since none of this is very interesting to watch for long stretches, the programming during mandatory viewing has a lot of filler material.   
  
Claudius Templesmith does a special on victors behaving badly, which features Haymitch rather prominently. To Miss Meadowbrook's embarrassment, it includes him sneaking out of her bedroom in the middle of the night, along with a general run of his drunken escapades. This segues to a live shot of him in a bar, huddled over drinks with Chaff, though neither of them is doing anything especially scandalous at the moment. We also see Brutus dancing half-naked with about a dozen different good-looking men, Mags teasing the cameras at the District Four seaside resort by ducking behind a planter then waving her bikini top around, and Berenice Morrow being arrested for morphling abuse in District Six.  
  
Other than that, there are hours of Games analysis, replays from favorite Games in the past (they don't play anything from either Quell, oddly), and interviews with the victors who are in town, but not mentoring. There are features on the districts that the remaining tributes come from. We've seen plenty of One, Two, and Four, but the feature on Ten is something new, and sparks a barbeque craze on the street for a day. Some of the victors with performing talents perform on Caesar's stage.  
  
People get restless.  
  
On the fourth day after we lose Babra, the inner district kids finally catch up with District Ten and kill him quickly. Tourmaline and Lucia, who've been chafing under Harris's hard direction -- and who are sick of the mutt attacks that seem to be directed at him -- choose to attack him as soon as the cannon goes off.  
  
Harris kills them both, and becomes the fifty-ninth victor of the Hunger Games. He's managed to get through the Games without a single injury. This means that the wrap-up is just as quick as the Games. I go to City Center and watch with several other people from Capitol Dreams as the official version is released. There's very little in it about Trill and Babra. It's all about Harris defeating mutts and ordering his alliance partners around.  
  
There is a banquet that night (I am not invited, and neither is Haymitch), and the next morning, the victors have to catch their trains home with the bodies of their tributes.  
  
I go to the station.  
  
Haymitch is quite drunk, but he doesn't harass me. He's sullen. He says hello. He's sitting between the two coffins. I open them to say goodbye. Babra's hair has been carefully combed, but her poor face is slashed in four places. The wounds are open, but not bleeding. I think I'll see those cuts in my head for a long time.  
  
Trill is cleaned up. He doesn't look like he's sleeping. He is obviously dead. But he has no visible wounds. I bend down and kiss his cheek. "I'm sorry," I whisper.  
  
Haymitch puts his hand on my shoulder, and I turn to him. There is nothing of our frenzied kiss here. I feel like a small child in a haunted house, and he's a child there with me, and we're just trying to convince each other that there are no ghosts. We hold onto each other for a long while and don't talk, then the District Six crew of the train tells me that I have to leave.  
  
I go back to my life, and Haymitch goes back to his.  
  
A week after the victors leave, there's a small announcement in the news that long-time District Twelve escort Ausonius Glass passed away after "a sudden illness" in District Four, where he'd been recently reassigned. No mention is made of murder, or of the missing escort who committed it. I know I'm not allowed to discuss it.  
  
The Games escorts all attend the celebration of Glass's life, but no one there seems to have any fond memories of him. His ashes are scattered. There's no cemetery in the Capitol, though there are a few memorial gardens for prominent citizens. I know that they exist in the Districts, because the tributes are buried, but I think that must be one of the punishments they're supposed to endure -- the constant reminders of death. In the Capitol, we just have the life celebration, then the scattering, which is done in something like a fireworks show above the desert outside the city. The ashes go up in a rocket, which explodes in the lower atmosphere and releases them amid a shower of bright sparks.   
  
I start looking for an apartment the next day.  
  
"You know," Miss Meadowbrook says as we go through listings, "you do have a nice salary, and it sounds like Caesar Flickerman means to keep you around. Maybe you should look for a house."  
  
"What do I need with a house? It's just me."  
  
"I have a house, and it's just me." She smiles. "Of course, I stay here most of the time because it's so lonely wandering around in there. But you may as well own something substantial while you're staying somewhere else. You _will_ be staying with us sometimes, won't you?"  
  
"Oh, I'm not sure. Another girl will probably want my bed."  
  
"I suppose…"  
  
"You could visit me sometimes. Nothing wrong with a new view."  
  
"You wouldn't mind?"  
  
"Not at all."  
  
But when I get my apartment, I don't end up seeing much of Miss Meadowbrook. She helps me find it and arranges for the boys to help me move in. She even helps me buy furniture and get through all of the paperwork with the bank. But she retreats to Capitol Dreams when she sees that I've framed the picture I took of Haymitch at the lake, and put it up on the little glass knick-knack shelves by the fireplace, along with a few others. (I thought long and hard about it, given what happened moments after I took the picture, but I decide that I want a picture of him, and it's the only decent one I've got. The picture of me, I put in a drawer.)  
  
I have my own place.  
  
For a few weeks, it is my pet project. I rearrange the furniture several times, I set up my closet, I paint the walls. But after a while, I realize that I'm completely alone. The neighbors are all a good deal older than I am. I miss Capitol Dreams.  
  
I turn eighteen. Most of the people I know give me little things for the apartment. Domitia gives me pictures of all of my friends. Glaucia helps me suit up my kitchen. Junius offers to "decorate the bedroom for a few nights," but when I tell him to get over it, just gives me a very pretty painting for the wall. Leon doesn't have much money, but he works as a carpenter, and builds me a nice seat in my bay window.  
  
Other than things for the apartment, Miss Meadowbrook gives me a session with her favorite designer and two dresses of my choice, and Caesar Flickerman sends me flowers. Three days after my birthday, I get a package from Haymitch. It has absolutely delicious cookies baked by a friend of his, and, of all things, a book of fairy tales. There's a picture on the front of a black-haired princess wishing on a star, and beautiful painted illustrations every few pages inside. On the inside cover, he's written, _Don't let me wreck them for you. They're good stories, and believe it or not, I like them. Always, H._  
  
I have never owned a book before. I've borrowed them, of course -- it's not that I don't _read_ \-- but books are so much paper, and everyone talks about how they break up decorating schemes, so I never bought one to keep. I feel quite sophisticated. I decide to read one story each week until I’m finished. I'm not sure what to do with it after that.  
  
There are two major projects that I feel I need to take care of. The first is a failure. I apply to get a personal comm, on the argument that my victor needs to be able to reach me during the Games, but I'm turned down. Caesar tells me not to take it personally; escorts are rarely approved for them. Most government officials don't get them. It's all about security. "They like to keep it limited," he says. "I'm not sure it needs to be, technically speaking, but since it's used by the government, I think they like to avoid overheard chatter."  
  
He knows a lot about the subject. Communications history is apparently his hobby. He tells me an unbelievable story about a time when people routinely carried personal comms, all on different systems, but that was before a lot of the atmosphere was destroyed, and things called "satellites" fell to Earth. I don't understand all of it, but they used to be able to get around the curve of the earth without cables. When the satellites went down, they had to re-create the entire system, and the people doing it, according to Caesar, "decided that personal communications weren't a priority." The Capitol has the limited system that the government uses, set up with the antenna stations around the city; the districts have nothing.  
  
At any rate, I don't get a personal comm. I try to call Haymitch on the regular cabled phone to tell him (since I promised I would), but his line just rings and rings. I finally write him a letter, and he writes back to tell me that he ripped the phone out of the wall years ago, and has no intention of putting it back.  
  
My other major project is more successful. I go to a doctor, and he's able, with a series of intensive treatments, to get rid of the scars on my head, or at least minimize them enough that I could go without a wig if I want to. This takes four months, during which I'm as bald as a cue ball under my wigs, and my head stings like fire while the chemicals work on dissolving the scar tissue. Even after it's over, though, I can't seem to go without my wig without thinking that people are pointing at me and laughing.  
  
I’m a month into this process when Firmina Sanders sends me an official invitation to her picnic in the Grove. It's in honor of Founding Day, so I wear a wig in the red and black of the flag, though it's far too warm and sunny to wear matching clothes. Instead, I choose a lightweight white and yellow dress.  
  
I make a lot of contacts, and set up sponsor meetings for Haymitch during training days for next year. There are a lot of younger relatives present -- people who would never live somewhere as out-of-fashion as the Grove, but who don't seem to mind enjoying their families' hospitality. Miss Sanders' neighbor has a large swimming pool, and the younger people at the picnic drift over there. Miss Sanders makes a point of taking me over and introducing me to her grand-nephew, a comic named Genesius Arlen. We spend the rest of the picnic together, and he takes me home. He's actually a very nice man, and we date for a few weeks. After we break up, I watch his act in clubs obsessively, hiding in the shadows, waiting for him to start telling jokes about me. He doesn't, and when he spots me one evening, he promises that he won't. As far as I know, he keeps that promise.  
  
In November, I get another letter from Haymitch, this one all business. Lepidus has gone into retirement, to work exclusively in his fashion house. Atilia will be going with him, since she decided to remain with his label rather than his Games team. I need to be the point person for finding a new stylist team, and need to talk to Caesar Flickerman about it. Haymitch has also sent him a letter, authorizing me to make the decisions in case there is any doubt.  
  
Caesar laughs at this when I get to his office. "Yes, I got the letter. He spent a good four paragraphs explaining that he trusts you, and there will be no need to second guess you. He'll sign whatever you decide on… it was quite adamant for a matter that really only required him to sign the form I sent."  
  
"He doesn't want a say?"  
  
"No, Miss Trinket. He just trusts you to respect what he wants."  
  
"Oh."  
  
He calls his secretary, Peri, to bring in a pile of portfolios. "Now, our custom is to allow the new stylist to choose a district, and the remaining stylists will be shuffled around in a draft. In practice, the escorts usually woo the new stylist to choose their districts. I don't know how much luck you'll have." He hands me one of the portfolios. "The new woman is Andronica Finley. She'll be bringing her business partner, Evodia. Do you think she would be a good match for Twelve?"  
  
I look at the pictures. I personally like the clothes, but she seems very much in love with fiddly little embellishments. I don't know how well she'd mesh with Twelve.  
  
"I'm not sure," I say. I bite my lip. "You know, I was looking last year. The stylist from Three isn't bad at all."  
  
"Well, the district that's lost the stylist gets the first 'draft pick,' so to speak, so if the new stylist doesn't choose Twelve, you'll get the choice of the rest of the field. I'd advise you to meet with all of them, though."  
  
"Of course! I'd want one who wants a chance to work with Twelve. If they feel like they've been stolen away, they won't do their best work."  
  
Caesar nods, pleased. "Very good. We'll have a lunch tomorrow for everyone to meet the new stylist, and all of the old ones. You're new, so you may have a time of it with them, but I think you'll be fine. Is this your first off-season duty?"  
  
"No. I've been working with sponsors."  
  
"Haymitch lets you near his sponsors? He _does_ trust you."  
  
I smile. I take home the portfolios from all of the stylists, and stay up late studying them. I like a lot of the costumes, but none are screaming "Twelve" to me.  
  
Lunch the next day is in the viewing center lounge. I try to talk to Andronica -- or even Evodia -- and get a cold shoulder when they learn I work for District Twelve, which makes me think they aren't that good a match, anyway. I'm not terribly impressed with the young stylist from Three when I meet him, though at least he talks to me. He thinks that District Twelve might need "special attention," given their unsavory mentor. I smile politely and move on.  
  
Andronica seems to be heavily involved in conversations with the escorts from One and Four. The District Five escort was promoted to District Four, and now Five has a new boy. I try to talk to him, but he's busy trying to get Evodia's attention. I'll make friends with him later, I guess. He'll probably need some help next year.  
  
The current stylists for One and Four steer clear of me when I go near them, which I take to mean that they're not interested in District Twelve, which means that I'm not interested in them. I guess maybe I _should_ try -- they wouldn't be working in the inner districts if they weren't good -- but I think they wouldn't give us everything. I want to make the choice right.  
  
I end up talking to the stylist from District Nine, Philippa Simms, for most of the meeting. She talks a lot about how much she respects the wheat farmers, and the hard, back-breaking hours that they work. I tell her what little I know about coal mining -- I decide that I have to learn more -- and we have a pretty decent conversation. I'm not blown away by her designs, but I decide that, if she doesn't run screaming, she's someone we can work with.  
  
At the end of the lunch, Andronica chooses District One. Caesar announces that I have first pick, and I see stylists backing toward the shadows and hiding behind plants.  
  
I ignore them. Philippa isn't running forward eagerly, but she's not hiding, either. I call her.  
  
She and her assistant smile bravely and come over to join me. The rest of the escorts choose in a random, lottery-drawn order. District Five has an early pick and snags the former District One stylist, and District Nine picks up the District Five man, who was looking a little panicked. Everyone else just speaks for the stylists they already have.  
  
I write to Haymitch to tell him my decision. He agrees that the choices were limited, and is happy with the criteria I used. I ask him where I can learn about coal mining, and he sends me a book they use in school. _If you come up some time before the Games, you can have a tour of the mines like we used to get in school. Philippa, too, if she wants to. But you'll have to wear a breathing filter. You don't want to breathe in the dust. And bring work boots. If you don't have any, bring money to buy them from Cartwright's. Those crazy shoes you wore last year won't cut it in the mines._  
  
Philippa and I discuss it, and I do put in for a travel permit, but they don't approve it. I apologize to Haymitch. He brushes it off, and sends permission for me to use his Capitol library privileges. He gives me a list of books and films recommended by the mining safety teacher at the District Twelve school.  
  
I don't understand _everything_ I read and watch, and even what I do understand is completely foreign to me. Giant drills, blasting caps, and a giant tub of water that somehow separates coal from trash rock. Dirty men and women in dark and cramped tunnels, with railroad tracks that run deep into the earth. All of the pictures show them looking miserable. I wonder if they all _are_ miserable. I suppose I would be if I had to work down there in all that gloom.  
  
I put together the images that I think are most interesting: The rickety looking supports that line the tunnels, the men with dirty faces but clean eyes under their goggles, the black water that's spun out of the freshly bathed coal. (I have to double-check why on earth they wash coal, but it turns out to be mundane -- they use floatation to separate the coal from the trash-rock.) I feel like I'm only getting part of the picture. I want to ask Haymitch more about it, but he doesn’t like talking about Twelve, and he warned me that they'd never see me as anything other than the person who calls their children to die. I'll have to rely on other sources. Maybe I should talk to their young mayor when I go for the Reaping.  
  
I get some pamphlets meant for officials and liaisons being sent to Twelve, but these are mostly glossy pictures of the small, walled compound adjacent to the mining office, where the rare officials live and are advised not to leave unless it's necessary. No reason is given for this.  
  
I take everything I've gathered to Philippa's studio.  
  
She frowns at the pictures. "I don't know how much I can do with this. They're in coveralls and they _are_ head-to-toe dirt." She thinks about it. "Look at the way it's perfectly clean around the eyes, though. Maybe I can work with that somehow. And the mines themselves -- the way the light just gets swallowed up in the black. Maybe…" She bites her lip, and sends her files away with a little boy she has sweeping the floors ("He's desperate to learn about designing, and I hate cleaning," she explains, "so it works out well").  
  
She has her winter show to do, but promises that she'll have sketches for me by the beginning of April.  
  
There is nothing else I need to do until then.  
  
I spend the winter enjoying the Capitol. I ski with my friends. I go to shows in the theater district. Miss Meadowbrook is starring in a musical. She plays a liaison assigned to a district after the Dark Days (it's hinted to be District Seven, since there are a lot of woods around, but never identified per se). The people are sullen and beaten, but she gets them cheered up and happy to be in the world again. All of the reviewers love her. I see it three times.  
  
I go to the banquet at the President's Mansion when Harris's Victory Tour comes to town. He'll be in the Viewing Center next year, so I make an effort to meet him. He seems to have calmed down a bit since the Games. He tells me that he's sorry about what he did to Trill. "I’m sorry about a lot, actually," he mutters before catching a stern look from his mentor and etching on an unconvincing smile. I wonder if he really is sorry. I think of Trill, face down in the mud, drowning before he reached the Cornucopia.  
  
I wonder if he'd have done the same to Harris, if he'd had the skill and the chance. And I realize something: Every victor in the Viewing Center has killed children from the districts of every other victor. They find a way to deal with it. I guess I need to find a way as well. It's the nature of the Games.  
  
I can't think of anything else to say, so I ask, "Is your mother all right?"  
  
"Yeah. She's good. They really only kept her until -- " He blanches, realizing at the same time I do that I asked about something that's not on the record. "Well, she was sure sorry she missed the goodbye hour. That's all."  
  
I go to Philippa's show, and make a point of ordering three outfits. It's not exactly a rule, but everyone knows that escorts should wear their stylists' lines. I get my picture taken, and in March, I'm a small part of a spread in a magazine about Games fashions. To my surprise, people write in to the next issue and compliment me. They love my wigs. I guess it's not bad that I still feel odd without them.  
  
When spring comes, I visit Philippa's studio again. She's been very busy since the fashion spread, but she has her Games sketches ready. She's got the tributes in black this year, instead of in variations of the coveralls, and she'll be working their make-up to highlight the way the miners' eyes seem clean when everything else is covered with dust. There will also be little bits of trick cloth that will light up in a certain spectrum, but disappear as soon as the light changes. It's interesting, technically, but I'm not sure it'll get much attention. I smile and tell her it's wonderful, but I'm a little concerned. It's my first major choice as an escort. I'm nervous.   
  
I set up six more sponsor meetings for Haymitch. They're new people, not his usual run of old women. They're younger and more fashionable, have more money that they're willing to throw around, and will get more opportunities to talk up the tributes they're sponsoring. I've vetted them to make sure they're not going to do anything that will make him fly off the handle. They all seem decent. Now, I just have to hope that Haymitch won't do anything to set _them_ off. I'm not looking forward to having a conversation with him about proper Capitol manners. These new people will not be as charmed as the Daughters by a backwoods accent and a faint, daring whiff of naughtiness. They'll also expect the tributes to be polished.  
  
I think Haymitch will do as I suggest. The money will help his tributes, and if there's one thing I'm absolutely sure about, it's that he cares about them.  
  
Caesar gives the final production team assignments two weeks before the Reaping, and I meet with our cameramen and site producers several times at Games Headquarters. Since we won't get there until the morning of the reaping this year, the schedule will be tight. I get everything down to the minute. I spend a lot of time on the phone with Mayor Undersee, to make sure everything on the ground is in place. I also learn that his daughter has picked up several words, and will be reciting poetry any day now.  
  
We all board the train early in the morning the day before. Philippa has loaded a car with wardrobes in several sizes, but she stays behind to get a start on the costumes, so that all they'll need is quick alterations when we get back.  
  
I stay up a good part of the night worrying that something will go wrong. (I don't really count Haymitch being drunk as part of this; I'm assuming it in my calculations, and have some pills in my purse to speed up the process of getting it out of his system.) I find myself wandering to the cold car at the back, where Haymitch's chair is set up between two platforms, which will most likely bear two coffins at the end of the Games. I stare at it for a long time.  
  
The train gets in to District Twelve at around nine-thirty in the morning, and I deploy the team into the square. My plan is to go to Victors' Village and get Haymitch up in time to get him presentable, but Mayor Undersee stops me. He's carrying his little girl.  
  
"Danny Mellark collected him this morning," he says. "Wanted to sober him up. It's been a bad few weeks. He's up at the bakery now." The baby reaches out and grabs at my wig. "Sorry," the mayor says, grinning. "I think she just wanted to touch the pretty lady."  
  
"Pid-lay," Madge agrees.  
  
I disentangle her fingers. Her hand is chubby and warm. Someday, her name will be in the glass balls that have already been set up on the stage. I smooth away a bit of her blond hair, then pull myself away and go to the bakery to find my boss.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haymitch and Effie go through five more years of Games together, growing both closer and further apart.

The bakery -- a shabby kind of wooden building with an apartment upstairs -- is very busy on reaping morning, running this way and that. The baker's wife snaps orders back to the kitchen and runs the till. She looks up at me with undisguised irritation and says, "He's in back."  
  
I go behind the counter and into the kitchen. The baker nods to me and gives me a distracted smile, and jerks his chin toward a door that leads to the back yard, where two little boys are playing in a mud puddle. Haymitch is sitting in a ratty old chair with a baby about Madge's size in his lap. He's telling a story, and I stand behind the screen to listen.  
  
"…so they finally came on the princess, and she was all witched up, in a cage made of… I don't know, let's say it was made of rubies. How'd that be? And she was witched up to be quiet, but Jack and all his little helpers had the tricks they'd been collecting, and one by one, they met that old witch and beat her at all her own tricks -- "  
  
"How'd they do it, Haymitch?" the oldest of the boys calls. "Was it with the flyin' boat?"  
  
"Don't cheat, Jonadab. You've been listening. You know what tricks they had."  
  
"Drinkwell drunk the creek dry," Jonadab says, coming over and sitting on the steps. "And Runwell won the race."  
  
"See, you've been listening. And they all grabbed up the princess, and they put her in the flying boat, and they took her home, and Jack won her hand forever and ever."  
  
"Tell another one!" Jonadab says, then looks up. "Hey, there's a princess."  
  
Haymitch looks up and smiles a little blearily. "Oh, look -- there's Princess Effie Trinket, her very own self. She's way better than me. Smells better, anyway. And she's much _much_ prettier." He holds the baby out to Jonadab. "You take your brothers upstairs like your daddy said. It's time for me to go."  
  
I don't think Jonadab is big enough to hold a biggish baby, but he manages all right -- if "all right" includes holding the baby facing forward, with his feet almost touching the ground… they actually skim on Jonadab's muddy bare feet, and he moves him by swinging him side to side, pretending to walk. The baby doesn't seem to mind much. "C'mon, Eddie," he says.  
  
I hold the door open, and the three boys go in beside me. Jonadab herds them through another door, and I hear them thumping up the stairs.  
  
"Are they all right to be alone?" I ask.  
  
Haymitch shrugs. "Danny's got one of the Purdy girls in to keep them in line while he and Mir deal with reaping day. Traded her some bread for it. I was just entertaining them while she got their breakfast ready, anyway." He looks up at the window. "Just don't call the Purdy girl, all right?"  
  
I shake my head. A teenage girl watching the children for a loaf of bread. In the Capitol, a child care worker would earn enough in a morning to buy groceries for a few days… and she'd be a trained adult.  
  
I decide not to engage this.  
  
"I brought some pills to sober you up. Mayor Undersee says it's been bad."  
  
"Merle's got his nose in where it doesn't belong."  
  
I fish out the pills and give him two, which he dry swallows. "What's been going on?"  
  
"You think something has to be going on? That's sweet."  
  
"Haymitch."  
  
He sighs. "Your nose isn't where it belongs either."  
  
"Fine. You need to get dressed for the reaping."  
  
"It's just that Babra's little sister passed on. Measles. The grocers don't have any kids now. I had to buy groceries. It was… what do you say to them? Measles took one kid, and I took the other. Who am I killing this year?"  
  
" _You're_ not killing anyone," I tell him. "Come on. Get up. I suppose the outfit will do for the reaping if we straighten it out and get it buttoned properly -- and put on a jacket to hide the stains, I suppose -- and I brought you some new clothes on the train for the Capitol."  
  
He pulls himself up from the old chair. He sways a little bit, and I catch his arm to steady him. He raises his hand to my face, then touches my cheek lightly and leans in to kiss me.  
  
I make myself pull away. Given that he smells like he hasn't bathed in a week, it's not all that hard. "You'll thank me for not letting you do that when you sober up."  
  
He grins. "You have a good spine on you when you want to."  
  
"Well, I started to suspect I might need one."  
  
I reach out to steady him, and lead him around the outside of the house, so we won't have to deal with the crowd in the bakery, though Haymitch stops at a window to wave to the baker and let him know we're leaving.  
  
I take Haymitch to the press tent to get some make up on him and get his clothes straightened out (technically, that's not in their job description, but no one wants us to look bad), and spend the next hour getting everything sorted out. I go back to Haymitch -- now more sober and looking better put together -- and go over the sponsor meetings I have set up for him. He sees a few of the names and makes a great show of groaning, but I remind him that they have serious money to give away, and he can manage to be polite for a few hours. I promise that they aren't the sponsors he calls "trolls" -- sponsors that are giving money to young kids for all the wrong reasons.  
  
Everything is in place. I check the racks of reaping cards to make sure they haven't been tampered with (they're coated with a trace material that changes color on handling, and none of them show more than the little bumps and brushes that would be expected), then have them emptied into the large glass balls that I draw from. I see the names rush by beneath the glass, and I know they're all attached to real children, real families.  
  
I blink it away. Maybe one of them will come back a victor.  
  
I go to the stage. The mayor introduces me.  
  
I reach into the bowl.  
  
These are the names I call:  
  
For the sixtieth Games, I call Hecky Sheehan and Mercy Dickson. They're both black haired children with bright gray eyes, and in Philippa's costumes, they look eerily ghost-like. It's striking, but a bad portent. They both die in the fighting at the Cornucopia, and I spend the rest of the Games running errands while Haymitch tries to help his friends among the mentors. It's the year that District Eight gets its second winner -- a scrappy, strong little fifteen-year-old girl named Cecelia. She never starts any of the fights she gets into, but she finishes them brutally. It comes down to a fight with a larger boy, and she wins by sheer virtue of agility: She's able to climb a tree that confounds him and fires down the rocks in her backpack until she's knocked him out. She finishes him off with a savage cut from his own knife, and screams at the sky. It takes three weeks in rehabilitation before she's presentable for closing events. Haymitch follows my instructions for the first week and meets with sponsors, but after that, he goes drinking with Chaff, and I mainly see him on television, acting like an idiot.  
  
I see him again on the morning the train leaves, sitting between the bodies. We don't hug this year.  
  
After the Games, I continue making contact with sponsors, and work several parties for Capitol Dreams. I fill in for Miss Meadowbrook as house mother for a little while, while she films a romantic comedy that will go on to be a huge hit. I work with Philippa, and when I'm photographed in a red dress from her winter collection, I end up covered by all the fashion reporters. The tabloid _Games Gab_ interviews me about clothes.  
  
Spring comes up on me quickly, and along with it, the next reaping.  
  
In the Sixty-First Games, I call Donkid Magill and Windy Megenry, another pair of black-haired, skinny children. I try to teach them table manners, but they won't learn, and when they're caught on television during training stuffing their faces full of fruit with their bare hands, I get calls from sponsors saying that they've decided to switch their sponsorships to a different district. I get into a fight about this with Haymitch, since he told me to "lay off on the trivia," and the kids hear it. Donkid asks us to stop screaming because we sound like his parents, and says that the sponsors don't matter anyway, since District Twelve goes down before they can be useful.  
  
Haymitch and I spend the rest of the training forcing ourselves not to argue, and trying to convince Donkid and Windy that they have a good chance, which isn't true, as they both insist on going for weapons at the Cornucopia. They try to help each other, and they actually make it as far as the piled up armory, but they're small and weak, and the inner district alliance cuts them down without a second thought. The eventual winner, a District One girl named Dazzle, is the one who kills Windy. It's her first kill of the Games, so her death is played over and over during the Games, and preserved for posterity in the Games reel. She's even on the cover, with Dazzle holding a knife above her. Dazzle is beautiful, and a popular victor. The cover even becomes a poster, which hangs in a lot of teenage boys' bedrooms.  
  
I sit with Haymitch on the train with them for a little while, but he doesn't acknowledge me that year.  
  
I have a hard time reaching a lot of Haymitch's regular sponsors over the year following the Games. The new ones I found for him aren't happy with two early losses in a row, and the older ladies, for all of their fondness, don't have money to throw away. They promise that they'll sponsor if it turns out the children need it.  
  
I spend most of that year dating a young man named Nicanor Bales. He brings up the idea of a marriage contract in March, but I tell him no. He doesn't show up for dinner after that, and I find all of his clothes moved out the next day. He doesn’t return my calls. I dream I'm in the arena, looking for him, but when I find him, he's turned on me. He rips off my wig and pins me down and stabs me. I wake up sweaty and crying.  
  
The stylist from District Six retires, and the new stylist, a flashy woman named Tigress, chooses District Two. I get a low number in the lottery, and we lose Philippa back to District Nine. By the time I choose, there are only three stylists left, and we end up with District Ten's stylist, Therinus May. He asks me if I have the pattern for authentic coveralls from the mines.  
  
I write to Haymitch. The return letter is clearly written deep in his cups. I can barely read it, but from what I can decipher, he's taking it philosophically. I write back and tell him to sober up before reaping. He doesn't return that letter, and when I come in the spring, I find him passed out in Victors' Village. I ask why he didn't go stay with his friend. He tells me that he's been exiled from the bakery. "Got Danny drunk again," he mutters. "Mir kicked me out. Said I can't come back at all. And Danny agreed." He sniffs. "Says he's someone's dad now, and he can't go out like a kid anymore. _My_ dad came home drunk pretty near every night, and I turned out okay. I'm a _vig-dor._. Isn't that what you're s'posed to be? In't it the thing everyone's s'posed to want his kids to turn out like?"  
  
I sponge him down and wash his hair. He's so filthy that I can't even imagine a sexual context to it, even though he's naked, and -- as usual when he's drunk -- prone to being physically affectionate with me. He tells me more about the baker and his wife (apparently, there was a separation, and she thinks he cheated, and somewhere or other, there's a baby involved who isn't _really_ involved, but the wife thinks she is, and… it just goes on and on, and I don't really follow it.) I manage to pour him into his clothes and get a couple of dry-out pills in him. I wish they'd invent something that would stop him from getting drunk in the first place, but this is the best I can do for now. I take the cart I borrowed and get him back into town just in time for the reaping to begin.  
  
The kids for the Sixty-Second Games are a miner's son named Kelman Killough, and the only daughter of the family that runs a second-hand clothing shop. Her name is Dotty Hallissey, and she has curly blond hair and freckles on her nose. Those freckles and curls become something of a fad after the parade.  
  
Dotty ignores Haymitch and dies at the Cornucopia. Kelman does as he's told, but has terrible luck finding clean water in the industrial wasteland of the year's arena. Haymitch manages to guide him to the next city block with a parachute dropped in the right direction, but he's so thirsty that he forgets to use his purifiers. He languishes with a stomach parasite for three days, and seems almost relieved when the boy from Six finds him and drowns him in the same pool that poisoned him.  
  
It looks at the end as if Six might have a third winner, maybe even one who's not strung out on morphling. He disarms the girl from Two -- Enobaria Fells, who's been pretty brutal herself through the Games -- and jumps her, his knife raised. She rolls at the last second, getting him off balance, then jumps on his chest and uses the only weapon left to her. She rips his throat out with her teeth, and becomes a victor.  
  
She's wildly popular, and when the Victory Tour reaches the Capitol, everyone wants tickets. I have been an escort for three years without a particularly popular tribute, so I don't rate, but I do volunteer to work it for Capitol Dreams. I don't meet Enobaria (I wasn't really trying), but I do meet Evasius Tyler. He's a photographer for _Games Gab_ and a few of the other fashion magazines, and he ends up getting my picture on the cover of two magazines that year. He tells me that I'm getting to be well-known enough that I should be promoted to a better district. As Haymitch hasn't bothered to answer any of my letters this year, it sounds good. But no one is leaving.  
  
I try to remember the way Haymitch kissed me at the lake shore. The way it felt to be wrapped in his arms. The way it felt when it seemed like he really needed me, that first year. Now, he doesn't even answer me.  
  
I find him drunk again when I go back for the Sixty-Third reaping, and I consider just letting him lie there, and make a fool of himself on television when he drags himself in. In the end, I grit my teeth and get him cleaned up.  
  
I call Berry Danes and Ronka Blaney that year. Berry is an awful flirt, and Ronka wants to try on all of my wigs. I let her try on the ones I've brought on the train, and when we get to the apartment, I bring over twenty more. We try them all on her, and I take pictures of her. She laughs and smiles. I see Haymitch watching all of this.  
  
After they go to bed the second night, he says, "You're still the best in the Capitol at this, Effie. I haven't said it, have I?"  
  
I shake my head.  
  
"I should've answered your letter, too."  
  
"It wasn't important. I was just trying to be friendly."  
  
"Did it work out with that Evasive guy?"  
  
"Evasius," I correct him. "And there was nothing to work out. It turned out he was just interested in taking pictures of me."  
  
"Is he crazy?"  
  
I roll my eyes. "If that's crazy, then most of the men in my life are crazy."  
  
"Then I guess they must be."  
  
"He told me I should ask for a better district."  
  
"Are you going to?"  
  
I look at the wigs scattered around the room, and at Haymitch, doing his awkward best to make small talk. Haymitch knows as well as I do that I'm not leaving. "Well, you know," I say. "As much as I can't wait to get out of here, there are no openings."  
  
He smiles, and I guess he knows it's a joke. We get along all right for the rest of the Games. When a reporter asks him if he's seeing anyone, he even jokes that he's "saving himself" for me. There's laughter, but somehow it doesn’t seem cruel. I tell him it's all right, and it becomes a running joke that he has with the press.  
  
Ronka and Berry do well at training, and even make an alliance with District Eleven, but the Cornucopia takes all four of them. My sponsor list starts to shrink again. Haymitch and Chaff and Seeder invite me to come drinking with them. Haymitch gives me a drunken kiss, and even though he won't remember it and it's sloppy and spitty and lazy, it still makes me feel more than either of the proper lovers I've had ever did. I push him away and leave early with Seeder. We end up sitting in the mentors' lounge and drinking wine. We don't talk about what happened at the other bar.  
  
Haymitch doesn’t remember it, or if he does, he does a good job of covering up for it.  
  
It's a large, woodland arena that year, and the Games go on for a long time. A boy named Jack Anderson, from Seven, befriends Marcus Deetz from District Six, and they hole up together in a cave after fighting their way from the Cornucopia together. Jack, a good looking boy with a delicately shaped face, has a very large female fan base, and I suppose that's why the official broadcast is carefully edited to make it look like the two boys are only good friends.  
  
The Gamemakers are enamored of the girl from Nine, and most of the coverage is her hunt for the boys who killed her district partner. Jack and Marcus are mainly left alone until the pack is down to six tributes, at which point, they decide to manipulate them into turning against each other by prohibiting food gifts in the arena. Slowly, the forest animals are called away, and the vegetation withers. All the boys have left is a dwindling supply of bread that someone sent Marcus before the prohibition kicked in. While the others in the arena continue their hunt for each other, interest builds as to whether or not district children will turn on their friends if they're hungry enough. Psychologists are brought in for commentary. People on the street place their bets.  
  
After a week with no food and very little water, Marcus digs up the last of the heel of bread. It's obviously stale and is growing mold. The boys have agreed to share it, but once he starts eating, Marcus doesn't stop. Jack comes in from a search for food to find him gulping down the last crumb.  
  
The cave is near the top of an incline, only feet from the edge of a ravine. Jack's fury and hunger outweigh any other feelings he may have. The fight takes them to the edge of the cliff, and Jack pushes Marcus over it. He stands there for a long time, his face mad with victory, then suddenly begins to scream. And scream.  
  
He's far enough away from the others that they don't hear him. The girl from Nine is killed when the other remaining tributes find her and cut her throat, then they go into melee, not realizing that Jack is still alive. The last one, the girl from Four, is gravely wounded, and dies waiting for the trumpets to sound her victory. Instead, the last cannon goes off, and Jack wins.  
  
It takes nearly a month for the counselors to put him together enough for final events, and during that time, Games fans are consumed with the question of whether or not they would sacrifice a friend to live. There's even a show created on the fly where best friends are brought in and made to work together to get toward a very large prize (a house in the foothills), but that only one of them can win it. They can either stick together at the second largest prize, or fight each other for the big one. Many tearfully admit how hard it is to stick to your friends in such conditions.  
  
Jack finally emerges, still pale and shaken, and Mr. Hedge is allowed to lead him through the closing ceremonies more closely than most mentors are. He seems ready to start screaming all over again during the first airing of the Games. Beside me, Haymitch has his hands balled into fists so tight that his knuckles are white.  
  
We don't talk about it.  
  
We do manage to correspond throughout the year, though there's little for us to do. I still maintain our ties with his loyal sponsors, and try to work new contacts, but they're drying up, even as I frantically rush to any publicity event I can to keep my face in their minds. Haymitch teases me about this, saying that I'm clearly trying to get promoted. I go along with the joke.  
  
President Snow's son Martius is promoted to Head Gamemaker. This causes a lot of buzz, because rumor has it that he and his father don't get along. Martius Snow goes on television and swears allegiance to the President, but there's a lot of talk about whether or not he means it. Haymitch is cautiously optimistic on the Games front, as he says, as far as he knows, that "Snow's kid" is mostly decent, and won't pull anything as crazy as the stunt they pulled with Jack.  
  
I meet a young bookkeeper named Vespasian Cane. I originally hire him to get my finances in order, but I find him funny and sweet. He doesn't make much money of his own, though he's good at handling mine. He treats me like the princess of his own personal kingdom. I bring up the possibility of a short marriage contract, and give him as long as he wants to think about it.  
  
He hasn't answered when the reaping comes again.  
  
For the Sixty-Fourth Games -- my fifth Games as an escort -- I call Nasseh Rutledge and Sunny Gormley. I've gotten to know enough about District Twelve that I can tell they're both miners' kids before I even talk to them. Sunny is misnamed. She's a sullen girl who is bound to find the cloud in every silver lining. Even Haymitch is more positive about things.  
  
Nasseh, on the other hand, is the best tribute I've seen so far. He listens intently to what Haymitch tells him, and all through training tries every skill he can. He diligently obeys my manners lessons, and understands implicitly that he has to impress the sponsors. Haymitch coaches him through Caesar's interview, where he's a huge hit, talking about his family and the stray cat that he looks after. He manages to put in a pitch for Capitol citizens to adopt pets, which makes Caesar laugh (and, according to a report, gets a hundred and sixty two animals adopted in the Capitol over the course of the Games).  
  
He follows Haymitch's instructions to the letter when he gets into the arena. While Sunny grimly charges the Cornucopia against orders, and dies doing it, Nasseh skirts the edge of the circle, picking up a small backpack and running for cover. It's a fantasy-based arena this year, with deep, shady woods and cool mountain trails. Nasseh finds cover in a feature that's clearly supposed to be an abandoned mine, and makes a point of joking to the hidden cameras that it was just made for him.  
  
He has no weapons, but he asked Haymitch what to do if that situation came up, and does as he was told. He doesn't try anything fancy. He just finds a well-shaped rock, rips a sturdy hem from his shirt, and lashes it to a heavy tree limb to make a hammer. It turns out to be very effective when he runs into the boys from Districts Six and Seven, though he takes their knives after the fight.  
  
Haymitch is fiercely devoted to him, and, for the first time since I've known him, seems to think he really has a chance. When Nasseh has trouble finding food, Haymitch sends him a very cheap basket, of all things, which I wouldn't think would have any use… but Nasseh reads it as Haymitch meant him to, and realizes that the berries he'd been avoiding are edible. He picks quite a lot of them. The next parachute contains five purifier pills. Haymitch is very specific about this, and it means taking one of them out of the usual packet of six. Nasseh frowns at it for a minute, but then seems to get it. He goes in the direction the parachute landed in, and finds the female tribute from Five, a decent girl who also has a large following. The two of them make an alliance, and get even more camera time.  
  
The sponsors start pouring in. Nasseh's face is on a lot of tee shirts in the street. He makes the final eight easily, along with his ally.  
  
Then Haymitch sends him the shield.  
  
It was supposed to be for sending signals -- the kids had been talking about coordinating an attack, and needed a way to "speak" across the ravine where the inner district pack is camped out. Haymitch went searching for something that would give a good flashing reflection, but could be hidden quickly. The shield, which was matte-painted on one side, seemed perfect.  
  
But Nasseh gets cocky. He decides that it means he should rush in on the camp, weapons flashing, with the shield to keep him safe.  
  
He dies in seventh place. His ally makes it to fourth. The winner is a boy from One, named Diamond.  
  
I barely notice this.  
  
After calling Nasseh's parents, I see Haymitch moving listlessly through the Viewing Center. He goes to the bar. I go to him and ask if he's all right. He tells me to go and leave him alone. Field questions from the press, if they have any. Anything. Just let him be. His eyes are red but cold, and his hands move extremely slowly.  
  
"Haymitch --"  
  
"Effie, _please_. Let me be."  
  
I try to go home and talk to Vespasian about everything, but all I can see is the blank look on Haymitch's face. Vespasian tries to cheer me up and distract me, but nothing seems to work.  
  
"I'm sorry," I finally say. "I have to go back."  
  
"It's not your responsibility."  
  
"He's my friend."  
  
"He's your _boss_."  
  
"I have to go," I say again.  
  
I grab a taxi back to headquarters and rush to the bar. He's long gone. The bartender says that he went back up to the apartment.  
  
I run across the plaza to the Training Center and take the elevator upstairs.  
  
"Haymitch!" I yell. "Haymitch, are you all right?"  
  
He doesn't answer.  
  
I almost pass by him. He's collapsed behind the couch, and all I see is one dirty bare foot. He's unconscious, and his breathing is slow and labored. He has an open bottle of gin, mostly spilled around his hand, and pills are scattered around him.  
  
I've seen this kind of thing before, mostly at parties where people lose track of what they've taken to feel good. I'm guessing Haymitch was trying to not feel anything.  
  
I grab his wrist and feel a thin, thready pulse. He's breathing on his own, but I don't think he will be for long. I call the Games medics. They'll be discreet. I gather up the pills for them.  
  
They arrive five minutes later and take him to the victors' hospital to pump his stomach (some victors come back poisoned from fruits in the arena), and they put him up in one of the recovery rooms. He stays unconscious for two days. I stay beside him.  
  
When I get back home, Vespasian has moved out.  
  
I move on.  
  
I'm scared for a while that I'll hear news out of Twelve, news that Haymitch has had another accident with his drinking, but after a few months pass without incident, I get a letter from him. He is doing better. The families of some of his tributes are looking after him. _They reminded me that even I'm better than no one,_ he writes. _They don't say it quite like that, but it's what they mean. I guess it would be selfish to have any more accidents. I don't want to throw everything onto you. Thank you for getting me help. I think I should have said that earlier._  
  
I'm still not sure. The words are measured, and I can't help hearing them in my head as a rehearsed speech.  
  
But he is still there when I arrive in the spring for the Sixty-Fifth reaping. We don't talk about what happened.  
  
The Sixty-Fifth Games are a lot of things. They're the year that Haymitch makes friends with a Gamemaker. The year that I call Treeza Murphy and Chicory King. The year that the stylists get more autonomy. The year of the island arena.  
  
But really, there's only one thing that matters: They are the year of Finnick Odair.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Sixty-Fifth Games, a handsome young boy from Four monopolizes the attention of the Capitol.

**Part Two: Beauty**

****  
  
**Chapter Ten**  
I get a glimpse of the boy from District Four on television, while I'm trying to get Treeza and Chicory to stop panicking. That's most of the point of watching the Reapings, and pretending that it's vitally important to see other frightened children coming up to the stage. It takes about half an hour, and sitting still that long is often enough to even off their breathing and get them thinking straight. At least that's Haymitch's theory, and so far, it's worked well enough.  
  
At any rate, the commentators don't dwell on Finnick Odair, except to point out that it's unusual, but not unheard of, for District Four not to produce any volunteers when a young tribute is called. We're assured that there have been at least sixteen Games where one of the District Four tributes wasn't a volunteer. The girl is an eighteen-year-old volunteer named Dempsey Colton, and she tries to upstage the quiet boy beside her during the reading of the Treaty. He's supposed to be fourteen, but he barely looks twelve. He's an attractive child. That's all I have time to think before they move on to District Five and Treeza -- who really is twelve, but looks fifteen -- asks if they'll actually get to meet Caesar Flickerman. She's one of the merchants, and some relation to the baker's wife ("at least according to the paperwork," Haymitch quips obscurely), and she has her blond hair cut into a fashionable bob. If I think there's anyone particularly threatening, it would be Swather Brooks, from Eleven, who looks like he might well eat both of my tributes as an appetizer before getting to the rest of the field. Chicory's eyes go wide when he watches that Reaping. He's seventeen, but skinny and malnourished, like so many of the children I've called.  
  
I don't give any more thought to the boy from Four until a slow moment at the Remake Center, while Chicory and Treeza are still in prep. _Most_ of the tributes are still in prep. Finnick Odair is sent downstairs wearing a pair of scaly pants meant to evoke a fish tail, and not much else. He looks around for his escort and mentor, who are both at meetings (Haymitch is meeting with a new sponsor himself), then sits down miserably on a chair not far from me. They've put a seashell wreath on his head, and he's carrying a plastic trident. Other than being cleaned up, they've really not done anything to him.  
  
And why would they? On camera, in a quick shot from a distance, he seemed to be a solidly attractive child, but nothing special. Up close, I can see that he is quite genuinely beautiful, the way a painting or a sculpture is beautiful. It's an almost feminine kind of beauty -- full pink lips, deep and thick red hair, and eyes as green as gemstones. His face is unmarked except for a casual spill of freckles on his nose, and he's strongly built despite his youth.  
  
He makes me think of the book of fairy tales Haymitch gave me, like he's a creature conjured up by a good witch, maybe a perfect son for the hardworking king and queen who've been cursed with barrenness, born from a seashell they found on the beach and gifted with all of the charms that could possibly fit into him.  
  
He seems to feel me looking in his direction, and looks up slowly. "Hi."  
  
I smile. "Hi. I'm Effie Trinket. I'm the escort from Twelve. Did you need anything?"  
  
He shakes his head. "I'm Finnick. I'm waiting for Mags. She usually mentors the girl, but I know her from home, and I asked if she could mentor me."  
  
"I think she got a call to meet with a sponsor while you were in prep," I tell him. "I'm sure she'll be back soon."  
  
He gives me a distracted little smile, and turns away to face the elevator.  
  
The other tributes start coming down about fifteen minutes later. Therinus has given up on his authenticity kick (it never went over well with the public) and has done something he calls "conceptualization." It's changed since the sketches I looked at. He's got them in a shared, tent-like structure made of lumpy, textured black material, which he says symbolizes a pile of coal. They are wearing hats that are supposed to be lumps of coal clumped together, but I don't even need to wait for Haymitch to get back to know what he'll say, and I'm right. I don't think I've ever heard anyone string together quite as many colloquialisms for defecation as he does as soon as he lays eyes on them.  
  
Therinus starts weeping hysterically about his "vision" while Haymitch (totally against procedure) hectors his partner, Agabus, into doing whatever he can to break the image -- "I don't care what! Just make them look less like a giant flying mutt crapped on them." We experiment with whatever we happen to have on -- Haymitch tries his suit jacket and his fine shirt on Chicory but they're way too big for him (Haymitch spends the rest of the evening in an undershirt, which lets the whole country see that he hasn't exactly been keeping in shape, and will cause no end of merriment among the comedians… but up close, I can still see the strength in his arms and shoulders). I offer Treeza my wig, even though I don't like going without it, but she shakes her head firmly. I do end up giving her my shoes, to give her a little height, and I spend the evening barefoot.  
  
Finally, we decide to cut the main structure in two, so that they're both wearing what look like asymmetrical black capes. Therinus refuses to participate, and Agabus doesn't want to cross him any further. I run out to the street and find someone who's selling strings of beads for the parties, and drape orange ones over their shoulders and around the hats. The first chariots are already going out.  
  
"What's that supposed to be?" Haymitch asks.  
  
"I don't know. Fire?"  
  
He covers his face, then sighs and looks up. "I'm sorry," he tells the kids. "We'll get past it with the sponsors, and at least you're covered up."  
  
Treeza turns this way and that, making her cape sway. "I like it," she says.  
  
Chicory looks at her like she's crazy and mutters something about blondes.  
  
Mercifully, the cameras don't dwell on them during the parade, and the close-ups during the president's speech are actually close enough that the audience is basically only seeing their faces.  
  
Not that much time is spent on the District Twelve chariot. Everyone gets at least one shot, but the focus perpetually moves back to District Four, lingering on Finnick's face from many different angles. The cameras love him.  
  
When we watch the recaps that night in the apartment, it's clear that the cameras aren't alone in that. People on the street have captured images from the live broadcast, and are carrying signs with Finnick's face blown up to poster size. A doll manufacturer promises that he has already called his top designers to get an action figure molded before the Games begin. Giggling schoolgirls declare their love. The segment producers joke about trying to find other tributes' fan clubs, but not having much luck.  
  
Treeza rushes to a mirror. "Do you think he'll notice me?" she asks.  
  
"Let's hope not," Haymitch says. "Getting noticed by other tributes isn't generally a good thing in the Games, unless they're scared of you. We're going to have to work around the -- "  
  
"I shouldn't have gotten my hair cut!" Treeza declares, trying to push her short hair into different shapes. "I was prettier with long hair."  
  
Haymitch shakes his head. "Don't worry. We'll get you more camera time."  
  
"What?"  
  
He closes his eyes, then opens them and turns to Chicory. "Are you worried about your hair, too?"  
  
"No. When I finish with pretty-boy, his own mother won't want to look at him."  
  
"Great," Haymitch mutters. We watch the coverage a little longer, then he sends the kids up to sleep. He and I have a cup of coffee in the little dinette area. "Effie, will you go out on the street and see if we have any friends that they just neglected to show?"  
  
"I'm sure we do," I tell him. "You know how they are. They're always looking for… novelty." I reach across the table and take his hand. He sometimes objects when I do this, but seems to have mostly concluded that it's harmless. This time, he weaves his fingers through mine. I smile. "I'll find their fans. And I'll get a wig with Treeza's haircut and get it into _Games Gab_. See if we can't get people to look at her as fashionable."  
  
"That would be good. And I'll see if I can get Chick calmed down. Going into training with a grudge is always a bad idea." He skims the ball of his thumb over my hand. "Is it me, or does that kid look a little familiar? Has he been on the broadcast from Four before?"  
  
"I don't think so," I say. "He's pretty noticeable."  
  
"Yeah." He squeezes my hand and looks at me calmly for what probably seems longer than it is. "I bet half the other tributes are weak at the knees, and the other half are out for blood."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"It's probably a good thing they stopped playing games with the sponsors," he says. "I mean… you remember the year after my Games. The way they found out that some people were getting sponsors."  
  
"I remember. You were one of the ones that helped stop it."  
  
"I sometimes wonder if it's back. Did you notice Jack Anderson squiring ladies around the Capitol?"  
  
"I just assumed that he decided he likes everyone. People do sometimes, you know. And they _do_ keep an eye on what you do with sponsors. Or what _I_ do with them, for that matter. I used to date a bookkeeper. He had some seasonal work making sure that all of the sponsorships were legitimate. Anyway, wouldn't you know? Wouldn't they be… well, talking to you?"  
  
He smiles wearily and stares at our twined hands. "It's one advantage of being a careless drunk with an expanding gut. No one's calling these days."  
  
One of his curls has disentangled itself from the rest of his hair, and is falling across his brow. I reach across and correct it with my free hand. "You know, in your year a lot of the girls in school were talking about _you_ after the parade."  
  
He catches my hand by his face and holds it. "Yeah? Were you?"  
  
I nod. "I even had a poster."  
  
"Oh, really?"  
  
"It was right beside my mirror."  
  
"Your mirror."  
  
"So it would look like we were standing there together having a conversation."  
  
"Oh. Naturally."  
  
"I didn't know how unpleasant conversations with you would end up being, of course."  
  
Our noses brush against each other, and Haymitch sits back, letting go of my hands. "You should go, Effie. Check out what's going on out there, and sleep at home tonight. I'll see you tomorrow morning."  
  
"I think you're right," I say. I get up and go to the living room, and put my shoes back on. Treeza shed them with exaggerated protestations of pain as soon as we got up here. I turn to head for the elevator and see Haymitch standing in the door to the kitchen area, watching me from the shadows. I look back at him.  
  
He smiles. "Get out of here, Effie. Please."  
  
I nod and go to the elevator. It seems to take a long time to get all the way up.  
  
Out on the street, there's a breeze coming in off the lake that keeps things cool, and I'm glad of it. In the Games plaza, the camera crews are milling around, hoping to get a glimpse of anyone inside. I'm recognized and interviewed cursorily -- who am I wearing (a dress from Philippa's pre-fall line), do I think my tributes are strong this year (of course, I'm completely sure of them), and how is the District Twelve team responding to the interest in the boy from Four (we haven't given him much thought, though I spoke to him and he seems like a nice young man). They release me. Later, I'll find out that the only thing that makes the airwaves is my comment that Finnick Odair is nice.  
  
The parties on the street are the same as ever, though there do seem to be more fans of Four than usual. There is almost nothing in Finnick Odair's look that people can copy, though a few barbers have opened up to offer dye jobs and haircuts, and enterprising children are selling seashells from the lake shore for people to make crowns.  
  
I end up having to go off the streets and into a few private parties -- they rarely turn away a well-known Games escort -- to find fans of districts other than Four, and they aren't promising. Haymitch's usual friends in the Capitol are reliable (though even Miss Sanders, while being devoted to Twelve, is showing more concern for what will happen to "that poor boy from Four -- they're going to smother him with all of this nonsense!"), and many children seem to like Treeza. Children always flock to the twelve-year-olds… though Finnick has a goodish concentration of these himself, since he looks so young. Chicory is decent-looking, and there seem to be people making a concerted effort to argue that brunettes are inherently more attractive than redheads, and in one alleyway, it looks like a fight might start over the subject.  
  
Finnick is all the talk at the smarter parties in the good section of town. Politicians and military men are talking in excited tones about how he resembles a young Alexander, whoever that is. One makes an obscure reference to sending him a horse named Bucephalus, and they all laugh. The president makes an appearance at this particular party, and I see him from a distance, talking to one of these men and smiling coldly.  
  
There are a few victors milling around as well. Jack Anderson is attending to an older woman who seems delighted with his company. He keeps glancing up at the screen, where they're showing re-caps of the parade. They still have the reaping crews down in Four, and Finnick's father has been cornered by them. He's a decent-looking man, though his skin is weathered by life at sea.  
  
"Doolin Odair," someone says beside me.  
  
I turn to find Mr. Hedge, the other District Seven mentor. He looks spooked. "Who?" I ask.  
  
"I used to do business with the old crook. Overpriced shellfish. I bought shark from him once. I haven't seen him in years. He looks old." He smiles a little madly. "I guess we all do."  
  
"Don't be silly. You look fine."  
  
" _She_ probably doesn't. She won't let them put her on television."  
  
"Who won't?"  
  
He blinks heavily. "The mother," he says. "Carolyn, I think her name is. She was beautiful once. The boy takes after her."  
  
It occurs to me to wonder how he knows what Odair's wife looks like. I imagine that they must have some kind of communication system to show the fish they're selling. Maybe she handled the business. But it looks like Mr. Hedge isn't thinking of her entirely as a fishmonger. "How do you know them?" I ask.  
  
He turns to me, wide-eyed, and seems to realize that he's been speaking to me. He forces a smile onto his face. "Aw, you know. Youth. There's a resort down there in Four. I used to date a Capitol girl, and she got us travel permits to go there. I probably couldn't do anything like _that_ anymore. I met Odair at the beach. He was selling fresh oysters." He laughs wildly. "You know what they say about oysters!"  
  
I don't, but I feel like I'm expected to, so I nod.  
  
On screen, Finnick's father is asked where his wife is. He says she was scheduled on a boat the afternoon after reaping. "She didn't want to go, of course -- not with all of this happening -- but she didn't have a choice."  
  
Mr. Hedge gives a derisive snort, then glimpses Jack across the room. He grinds his teeth and excuses himself.  
  
I stay out until just after two, then go home. I put in an order for a wig in Treeza's hairstyle (though I choose to make it blue, so it won't _look_ like I'm trying to sell it). It's not uncommon, if not quite common enough to be called _the_ In Look, so my wigmaker has it in stock, and it won't require much in the way of resizing or styling. Since my orders go to the front of the line, it should be ready for delivery before I leave tomorrow morning.  
  
Sure enough, I'm awakened by a messenger at eight o'clock. He has my new wig. I put it on and dress to match. Make-up is relatively minimal this season. A tan base, glitter frosted false eyelashes, and pearl-toned lipstick. I'm ready to go well before nine, and I get to the Training Center apartment just as the servant -- they've started using Avoxes, of all things, now; this is the first time I've ever seen one not doing menial maintenance work -- is setting out breakfast. Haymitch is trying to strike up a conversation with her.  
  
"She can't talk," I tell him. "No tongue."  
  
His eyes open wider. "What?"  
  
"It's usually a punishment for traitors."  
  
He stares at the girl, then looks at me. "You're all right with that?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
He looks like he's about to say something, then shakes his head and calls the kids out. We have a decent breakfast together. Haymitch advises them to stay clear of the Career pack, which is what he calls the inner district alliance.  
  
"Like I'd want to go near that pretty boy," Chicory grouses.  
  
" _I_ would," Treeza says dreamily.  
  
Haymitch rolls his eyes. " _You_ snap out of it. I have no idea what kind of person he is -- "  
  
"He's a good person! You can tell in his _eyes_. Even Effie said he was nice, on television."  
  
" -- and neither do you. Maybe he's decent. But maybe he knows how to use that pretty face to get you to come close enough to kill." He considers it. "He _is_ young, though. The other Careers might not want him. If they seem to be leaving him out of things, go ahead, make an alliance. There are worse things than being allies with a kid who's going to end up sponsored by half the Capitol."  
  
I check messages while the kids change into their training uniforms. I'm disappointed -- but not surprised -- to find that two of this morning's sponsor meetings have been canceled.  
  
Haymitch brushes it off. "It's bad luck," he says. "I know you've been working the contacts. Nobody was predicting Helen of Troy showing up in a chariot."  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Never mind. Just an old story." He watches the Avox cleaning up the dishes for a few minutes, his nose wrinkled in unmasked disdain. "What do we have left on dock?"  
  
"You have three still," I say. "One first thing -- you'll need to go downstairs with the children. After that, there's an hour break, then two more. All in the conference rooms. I'll see if I can find a few more during the first one."  
  
"Thanks. Give me enough of a break to check in with you, though."  
  
"I'll meet you in the lounge."  
  
As it happens, I can give him the full hour's break. No one is interested in coming to a meeting who hasn't already set one up. The president of his fan club -- a strange, bookish little man named Erastus -- promises to see if he can stir up some interest in Twelve. "I don't suppose he's done anything this year?" he asks timidly. "I mean, I know he's… busy… at home. Does he have a girlfriend? Boyfriend? Is he doing a hobby?"  
  
"He's not seeing anyone," I say. "And his hobby… He… well, he reads."  
  
"Mmm. I wish he'd at least give us an interview about what he's reading. Do you know if he's read the new one by Quintina Winters? A lot of readers are talking about it. Maybe if he's read it, they'd want to hear about it and maybe give him a little money?"  
  
I'm no one's idea of a reader, at least not the way Erastus means, where they make a whole lifestyle of talking about books, but even I've heard of _The Checklist_ , a book about a District Three woman who is working her way down a list of titillating activities that are frowned on there. I'm reasonably sure what questions people would ask Haymitch about it. I'm completely sure that he has no idea it exists and wouldn't read it if he did. "I think he prefers the older stories. Do you know who 'Helen of Troy' was? Would they want to hear about her?"  
  
He says the character name sounds familiar, but he can't place her, and doesn't sound hopeful about her generating interest. The fan club has shrunk a lot, and, Erastus complains, half the ones who are left are there for all the wrong reasons. "Half of them believe that rubbish about him being a drunk. I keep telling them that's just something the news makes up to make him look bad."  
  
"Well…"  
  
" _They'd_ probably just want to hear about that homemade liquor he supposedly drinks. They keep trying to make it."  
  
"I don't think he knows how to make it."  
  
Erastus grumbles a little bit more about how he's sure they're just not showing the _real_ Haymitch, who's one of the smartest men in Panem and certainly must be doing _something_ with it, then lets me go.  
  
I go downstairs and find Haymitch waiting in the lounge in a sour temper. He's been taking the pills that keep the craving for liquor off of him, but they don't improve his mood.  
  
"Nothing from the first one," he says. "Apparently, he wants to 're-direct' his contributions."  
  
"I'm sorry. He should have canceled, too."  
  
"I think he wanted to come down here to see if he could get a glimpse of the training room screens."  
  
"Oh."  
  
He shudders. "As far as I'm concerned, that means it's just as well he's not looking at Chicory and Treeza. What's wrong with a guy who's salivating over a fourteen-year-old kid? Who looks even younger, while I'm at it."  
  
"I'm sure it's not like _that_ …"  
  
"Go out on the street tonight, Effie. See how many of the hookers have their hair dyed. How many have seashells on their outfits. Then tell me how 'sure' you are." He runs his hands through his hair. "And if you're right, tell me so, because I could use an uplifting tale just about now."  
  
"Is Helen of Troy an uplifting tale?"  
  
He laughs. "You're not getting past that one, are you? Answer's no, not in the least. If you want to read it, it's Greek mythology. Suffice it to say, her beauty was leveraged pretty well. You can use my library pass after the Games."  
  
"Thanks, I -- "  
  
"Haymitch?"  
  
He looks up, surprised, then leery. I look over my shoulder and see a short, roundish man who I recognize from about a hundred Capitol Dreams events, but have never met properly. I hold out my hand to shake his, but he doesn't respond.  
  
Haymitch seems to know him, though. "Plutarch," he says cautiously.  
  
"Good to see you!"  
  
"Are you back with the Gamemakers?"  
  
"Oh, I've been with them all along. They've had me on research. I'm a full Gamemaker now."  
  
"Wonderful."  
  
"Feels like I haven't talked to you for years," Plutarch says. He claps Haymitch's arm, actually reaching around me to do it, and moving me off to one side a little bit. "I haven't really been myself, but I'm feeling better now."  
  
"Oh, really," Haymitch says dryly, and physically turns me around to face Mr. Heavensbee. "By the way, this is my escort, Effie Trinket."  
  
Mr. Heavensbee's eyes flicker over me briefly and he says, "Yes, of course. So what _have_ you been doing?"  
  
Haymitch clamps his jaw. "Making friends with my escort, among other things. Effie, this is Plutarch Heavensbee. Plutarch, Effie."  
  
Mr. Heavensbee seems to realize that he's been reprimanded. He smiles at me formally and says, "It's nice to meet you, Miss Trinket. Haven't I seen you at Capitol Dreams functions?"  
  
"Yes. Quite a few."  
  
"Well, I'm not with Capitol Dreams anymore -- it was just eating up so much time -- so it's certainly nice to know that I'll see you somewhere new." He turns back to Haymitch. "It frees up my schedule a little. I wondered if you and Chaff might be interested in a nice chess game sometime. Now that I'm feeling better. Fulvia will be with me. You remember my girl, Fulvia? I started seeing her again a few months ago."  
  
Haymitch frowns. "That's great, Plutarch. We'll play chess. But remember -- don't try any feints on me."  
  
"Wouldn't dream of it."  
  
Mr. Heavensbee walks away.  
  
"What was that about?" I ask. "Why did you want me to meet a Gamemaker?"  
  
"I don't care whether or not you meet him," Haymitch says, sitting down at the lunch counter in the lounge. "Plutarch's a blowhard and I don't trust him any further than I can throw him. But I'm the only one who gets to ignore you. And frankly, I ought to be smacked over the head for it."  
  
I smile, and grab the stool beside him. "Let's get you set up for your next meeting. We'll need more sponsors if we're going to compete with Helen of Troy."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the training goes on, opinions solidify on the nature of Finnick Odair, and Effie and Haymitch try to get more sponsors.

**Chapter Eleven**  
Haymitch and I finally get a small list of people we might be able to count on. Lepidus still has a soft spot for Twelve, and for Haymitch particularly, and his house has been doing well this year. His old hair stylist, Medusa, is also having a banner year, and would probably sign over her entire life savings to him if he asked her for it.  
  
Haymitch says he doesn't know why this is true, but I did spend time on the prep team. I know that he told Ausonius Glass -- who always had a penchant for physically bullying the other members of the team -- that any injury done to the preps or stylists was going to be visited back onto him. Haymitch might or might not remember doing that. He certainly doesn't think it was anything special, and it's of a piece with the way he treats everyone he decides is under his protection. But for Lepidus, Atilia, and all of the District Twelve preps who were with him through his Games and the year afterward, it was an unparalleled act of valor, which they tell to newcomers in hushed and awed tones. ("And he doesn't even want a thank you for it!") The newcomers tell more newcomers. By the time I came on board, the re-telling practically had him holding a pure silver sword over Glass's head and giving a soliloquy about the dignity of honest labor. Knowing Haymitch, it was more likely a quick shove and a drunken rant about leaving his people alone, but I don't see any harm in letting people believe the stories.   
  
I'm sure Haymitch would object if he knew how mythical it's gotten, but the tellings all include a caution not to mention it to him, lest he be embarrassed. It's a good caution, and I don't tell him about it, though my fear isn't of his embarrassment. My fear is another blow up like the one at the lake shore, about it being naïve and stupid to believe things like that. There's no reason to make the style team cry.  
  
I'm not sure Haymitch sees himself any more clearly than they do, anyway.  
  
At any rate, I tell him that he should call them, since they're his friends. For my part, my old friend Junius has had a good year working in a genetics lab. He developed a miniature lion that's all the rage in the designer pet crowd. His wife is a socialite with connections to everyone who's anyone, and I promise to use them. I also promise to vet them _before_ I use them.  
  
"I just don't want another one like the guy this morning," he says, shuddering as we watch the silent feed from the training room, where one screen shows Finnick Odair alone at the spear station. Most of the boys have shed their shirts, but he hasn't. It doesn’t help. Several girls (including Treeza) are at the nearby knot-tying station, not tying much of anything. On another screen, I can see Chicory throwing knives. He's not bad at it, but he loses concentration frequently. We can't see directly what he's glaring at, but I don't think it's a very hard guess.  
  
"Is that the boy from Eight that he's talking to?" I ask, and flip through my guidebook. "Batten Stone."  
  
Haymitch frowns. "Yeah, I think it is. If they stick together, I'll talk to Woof about an alliance. Or Cecelia, I guess. Woof wasn't looking very good at the parade. Did you see him?"  
  
"No. But there was a rumor that he had an accident. It was on the news last fall. I didn't hear everything about it. I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry. I was still mostly worrying about _your_ accident."  
  
His eyes flicker up to mine, then go back down. "What kind of accident did Woof have? Was it like mine?"  
  
"No. It was something to do with the river up there in Eight. I can find out if you want."  
  
"No, I'll take care of it. You go get those sponsors if you can."  
  
I stay a few minutes, watching our tributes falter in training, then go off on my errands. Junius is a dead end, as his wife and her socialite friends are all abuzz about District Four. District Twelve is so far out of fashion that they treat even talking to me as a great service they've done for the less fortunate. On a whim after I leave, I go to Evasius at the _Gab_ to get him to get my wig on the fashion pages, and he's a better lead. Apparently, the high level cosmetologists are desperate for another tribute to grab the spotlight -- one whose face isn't so beautiful that it needs no make-up. They want someone whose look they can sell. I give them Treeza, who is lovely but even prettier with a bit of mascara and some glow effect highlights. They're even fonder of Chicory, since the distinctive olive shade so common in District Twelve's mining population can be mass produced as a body spray, and any hair color can be dyed black. "I can _work_ with that!" a young owner enthuses over a picture I show him. "If he wins, I could sell that look for a long time. They did when Haymitch won, you know. I was just his age, and I had my hair permed and darkened, and I covered up my freckles for weeks."  
  
I nod, and decide not to share the reasoning with Haymitch. I think he would be less than thrilled by it… but it's not actually dangerous. Wanting to look like someone isn't the same as wanting to touch that person.  
  
When I get back to the apartment, the children are up from training. I know this before the elevator doors open, because I can hear them screaming at each other, though the words aren't clear until it opens up and I see Chicory storming around and ranting.  
  
" -- going to follow around that stuck up little -- "  
  
"Finnick is _not_ stuck up!" Treeza yells. "He's _sensitive._ He doesn't want to train with you because you're a jerk!"  
  
"He thinks everyone ought to be falling over him, but even his own district partner doesn't want him. I talked to Dempsey. She says at home everyone always gives him what he wants, too, but she's not into that."  
  
"He's very hurt about that!"  
  
"You didn't even talk to him! You just stood there with those other loser girls and giggled at him."  
  
"How long has this been going on?" I ask Haymitch quietly, slipping into the dinette chair across from him.  
  
"They came up on the elevator fifteen minutes ago, and they were already fighting. With each other." He grimaces. "On the bright side, Lepidus came through. Medusa, too, though she really doesn't have that much money."  
  
"You don't _understand!_ " Treeza screams, and stomps off to her room.  
  
Chicory grumbles, then turns to us. "He probably can't even fight, you know," he says. "He didn't go to any of the stations where he'd be fighting with people. He probably just gets stupid girls like Treeza to do his fighting for him."  
  
"I wouldn't count on that," Haymitch tells him. "He may just not be tipping his hand… like I told _you_ not to do. Mags knows that strategy well."  
  
Chicory gives a disdainful sniff. "Yeah, well, maybe. But I still bet he's never risked getting that tiny little nose broken. Bet he'd snivel like a merchant girl if he found out that someone had the gall to hit him."  
  
Haymitch catches his arm as he goes by. "First of all, my ally was a merchant girl, and Maysilee would have put you down in about ten seconds, with a whole lot less sniveling than you're doing. Second, you don't know any more about this kid than Treeza does, and if you start acting on your assumptions instead of the facts in the arena, you're dead. Third, picking fights with your district partner is a stupid way to spend your training time. Now go upstairs and get cleaned up for dinner."  
  
Chicory grinds his teeth. "He's going to get all the money. They're going to give him everything. It's not fair."  
  
Haymitch nods. "Yeah. I know. The Games aren't fair, and I'm sorry about that. But don't pick a fight with someone who only exists in your head."  
  
"But -- "  
  
"I'm trying to keep you alive as long as possible, Chicory. You understand that, right?"  
  
"Yeah, I guess."  
  
"Then act like it, and do what I tell you."  
  
Chicory grinds his teeth, and goes up to his room without saying anything.  
  
"Was I like that when I was seventeen?" Haymitch asks. "I don't remember. Of course, I was probably drunk, which tends to fog the memory."  
  
"You were drinking at seventeen?"  
  
"The year after the Games? Oh, yeah. As much as I could." He shrugs. "I don't remember being that big an idiot, though. Were you an idiot when you were seventeen?"  
  
"Well, I did risk my job to clean up a man I never met that year."  
  
He grins. "Yeah, I guess you did. I forgot how young you were. What about when you were twelve? Were you like Treeza?"  
  
"Definitely."  
  
"Yeah?" His smile gets broader, and I can't help but return it. "What guy did you decide was too sensitive to talk to you?"  
  
"Parmenas Palmer." I sigh dramatically. "He was the cutest thing I ever saw, and I was sure we'd sign a permanent marriage contract the second I worked up the nerve to say hello to him."  
  
"Did you ever?"  
  
"No." I laugh. "What about you? What girl was making you crazy back then?"  
  
"At twelve?" He shrugs. "I was pretty much a one-girl guy before the Games. It was always me and Digger. She was my best friend until we were big enough for anything else."  
  
"You never even daydreamed about anyone?"  
  
"Sure. But I was a guy who sometimes had to wear his mother's old clothes to school and kept his shoes together with packing string and good luck. I was too busy being amazed that Digger would bother with me to put much energy into wondering about anyone else."  
  
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up."  
  
"Don't worry about it. I can't remember the last time anyone asked about her." His eyes go far away for a minute, then he brings himself back. "Thinking of old friends, how did you do with yours…?"  
  
I fill him in on the day's sponsorships. He tells me that Cecelia actually came to him about an alliance between Chicory and Batten, and that the girl from Seven, Eloise Tate, is also interested, so we'll get to work with Jack Anderson. He's got the papers ready. I go up to the Gamemakers to file them.  
  
The next two days are the same, though with less luck in terms of sponsors. Treeza has fallen in with the group of young kids, much to Haymitch's distress -- the young ones are almost always killed quickly if they're not allied with older kids. Chicory's group goes through training together, and Haymitch is cautiously hopeful, as Batten seems to have good sense. The second day of training, they stop wasting their time glaring at Finnick Odair and actually work on their skills.   
  
Although a half-hearted effort is made to give air time to other tributes, the coverage still seems to be mostly about Finnick, and the District Four chariot is used as the main graphic for the Games, zipping by under official reports, trailing text in its wake. People speculate about what kind of life he has at home, with a mother who could head straight out to sea while her son is in the Games. Some are firmly in the camp that he has a happy home ("Look how self-assured and confident he is!"), and others believe he seems terribly lonely ("They haven't even interviewed any of his friends"). A growing group of people on the street seem to be taking up Chicory's attitude, that he's most likely spoiled and unpleasant, and they're countered by increasingly shrill screams about how he's _really_ isolated by his beauty.   
  
"You notice that no one's _asking_ about him," Haymitch says while we watch late night coverage. "That would spoil all the fun of guessing."  
  
For his part, Finnick does seem to be unwelcome with the inner district kids, which is very stupid -- an ally with that much money coming in would easily keep them going for a long time. He spends some time teaching the giggling younger girls about knots that aren't in the book at the knot-tying station, but doesn't make any moves toward an alliance with them. Chicory makes a snide comment at dinner about wasting a training day playing string games with little girls. He approaches Chicory's group on the third day of training, just before evaluations, but they turn him away.   
  
"Are you crazy?" Haymitch asks when Chicory gets back to the apartment. "I really want to know. That kid would guarantee you camera time and sponsor gifts."  
  
"He can't do anything but tie knots and look pretty," Chicory says. "They'll probably kill him at the Cornucopia."  
  
"Yeah, well, he's in with the Careers now -- the papers are filed, no matter what Dempsey wants -- so they'll get all of it."  
  
"The sponsors aren't going to care about them after he's dead. Which he will be. He probably just played Cat's Cradle with the judges."  
  
If he did, he must have played it well. He's awarded a nine. It's not the highest score in the pack -- that goes to Swather, who gets an eleven, and there are two tens as well -- but it's higher than our tributes. Chicory gets an eight, and Treeza gets a three.  
  
Chicory makes a crude suggestion about what he really did to impress the Gamemakers. Haymitch sends him to his room to cool off. Treeza takes the opportunity to eat the desserts that he leaves behind. She seems untroubled by her low score.  
  
The next day is interview prep day, which means I spend a lot of time teaching Treeza to walk in high heels. It's becoming a yearly ritual, since none of the girls from Twelve seem to ever wear them, and I'm developing a pretty good script for it. At least Treeza doesn't need to be talked into them, despite her discomfort at the parade. She sees right away how much better her dress works with them. (The dress needs all the help it can get. Therinus has continued his "conceptual" theme and made it out of an actual coal sack. I promise Treeza that I'll bring her nice jewelry from home to spruce it up for tomorrow, and I'll think of something wonderful for the prep team to do with her hair.) With Chicory, it's all about sitting still and looking interested for more than an hour while the other tributes are speaking. The boy from Twelve gets the distinction of speaking last -- an advantage in terms of memory of the interview itself, but a distinct disadvantage for the time before, when the camera has many opportunities to catch him fidgeting.  
  
I don't know what Haymitch has coached them on for their interviews, though he had Chicory for a very long time, and they both looked grumpy when they were through. We have a decent enough dinner, and we watch television for a little while. The Games coverage is trying to correct the earlier excess and stir up interest in the interviews with other tributes, so they get a little boost from that.  
  
I spend the night finding interesting ways to style the wig I have in Treeza's haircut, and finally settle on free, breezy curls, dotted with sparkling gem clips. I try to think of something to do with jewelry that Therinus will let me get away with. At some point in school, I remember hearing about coal and some kind of jewel. I decide that will be the theme. I'll make the coal sack sparkle, like the coal inside is being turned into jewels. I'll use some decorative wig pins for it. Therinus won't _like_ it, exactly, but I think I can spin it as being an excited elaboration on his "vision." Treeza will enjoy anything that sparkles. Haymitch will tolerate it as well as he can. Maybe Therinus will be so upset that he'll quit. I have my eye on District Three's stylist if he does.  
  
At the interviews, I sit between Haymitch and Mags Donovan from Four. Mags keeps getting Capitol Dreams runners coming in with messages about sponsors, right up to the moment that interruptions are banned in the audience. On Haymitch's other side, Jack Anderson is watching all of it with a wary eye. Last year, his first as a mentor, he was a wreck and Blight handled everything. This year, he's considerably calmer. He tells Haymitch that he has a live-in assistant at home, who's been keeping him grounded.  
  
"How'd you swing that?" Haymitch asks. "They were pretty strict about non-relatives when I was asking."  
  
"Well, you know," Jack says, looking down. "Play nice with them, you're allowed the occasional perk. Linden's really just an old friend. The Gamemakers said he could stay as long as he… had an identifiable function."  
  
"That simple, huh?"  
  
"Probably not for you," Jack says. " You'd already annoyed them. I'd done exactly what they wanted me to."  
  
Cecelia, sitting on Jack's far side, puts an arm over his shoulder and musses his hair fondly.  
  
The audience lights go out, and the stage lights up, showing the tributes sitting in their semi-circle. I try to hold back a hiss -- at some point after I left, it looks like Therinus had all my baubles removed from the dress. Treeza looks heartbroken.  
  
Caesar does his usual patter, then starts introducing them. I think I've come around to Haymitch's opinion of the interviews. The District One and Two kids' bragging about their surefire strategies goes out of my head as soon as it goes in. Three is marginally better. Dempsey from Four goes right back to strategy.  
  
Caesar reaches Finnick. He makes a great show of scratching his head. "I think I might have seen you a few times during the lead-up events. Finnick Odair, right?"  
  
"Guilty," Finnick says.  
  
"Well, you certainly made an impression at the parade. Were you surprised?"  
  
"Aw, no. Happens to me all the time. Makes it very hard to do my job. The fish are scared of all the cameras flashing, and they get really tired of the reporters asking them about me."   
  
"So you help your family with the fishing business?"  
  
"Well, you know, when I can spare time away from the mirror. It's so hard to pull myself away some mornings." He grins at the audience, and most of the ones he didn't already own now belong to him. It's not that his joke is all that funny. It's that he's told a joke at all, and is acknowledging the craziness around him. _It's okay,_ he seems to tell them. _We all know it's silly, and it'll be our little joke, right?_  
  
Beside me, I can see that Mags has her fingers crossed so tightly that her knuckles are white. I realize that this whole business is a strategy -- to make light of it all in order to defuse the tension.  
  
It works. The audience laughs. Finnick waves to them jauntily, and they clap.  
  
"So, is there a special girl at home?"  
  
"Come on, Caesar. I just turned fourteen last month. My dad's not going to let girls in the house for another two years. And Mom says she plans to sit out on the porch with a trident in her lap when they do start coming around."  
  
Caesar throws a few more softballs about what Finnick would like to do if he wins, and I notice that, as the interview goes on, each answer comes off as just slightly younger than the one before it. (He wants to buy a dog of his own if he wins, and when he gets a lot older, maybe a car.) I glance over at Mags. She's watching him very intently, and when he finishes, she nods grimly, looking pleased. On my other side, Haymitch's expression is unreadable. Jack sighs and shakes his head. He leans over to Haymitch, and I hear him whisper, "They're going to eat him alive." Beyond him, I can't see Cecelia clearly.  
  
Caesar is always careful about the amount of time each tribute gets, and during the actual show, they're equals. Eloise from Seven makes people smile with a story about a bird she once tried to catch while she was out at a logging camp. Hiram Lender from Nine makes a bombastic little speech about the impressive skills he's been hiding so far. Swather counts on his size to be intimidating, but spends his time talking about a poem he once read (this makes Haymitch grin; I guess he's read the same poem, which is about "a dream deferred"). Treeza is actually rather charming in her interview, playing up her own youth, and even managing a flustered flirt in Finnick's direction. Caesar reaches Chicory last. Beside me, Haymitch mutters, "Stick to the script."  
  
I don't know what the script is, but Chicory steers well clear of his opinion of any other tributes, instead talking about the backbreaking work his father and brothers do, and how he feels like they make him strong. On the whole, he comes off well.  
  
Not that anyone would know it from the recaps. Everyone gets a little quote, but the analysis is squarely on Finnick. Everyone seems to have a story about what he is "really" trying to convey with the quips about his youth. Capitol boys roll their eyes at the idea that a boy who's reached fourteen isn't seeing anyone (it _does_ seem a little farfetched, but I know things are different in the Districts). Girls have created a girl at home out of thin air, who is pining for him. Adults deem his parents' overprotectiveness unhealthy, and District mores are dutifully tut-tutted. I can imagine Miss Meadowbrook watching back at Capitol Dreams, rolling her eyes at how very seriously District boys take these things.  
  
Haymitch and I try to distract the kids from the constant barrage of coverage, which isn't easy, as Treeza has her own theories about Finnick's life at home and feels the need to share them with us. Chicory just glares throughout the broadcast, no matter what stories from home Haymitch tells to get his attention away.  
  
We send them to bed and say goodbye, since the stylists will be here to collect them in the morning, and we won't see them before they go.  
  
"They did as well as they could, didn't they?" I ask Haymitch.  
  
He nods. "Yeah. But tomorrow's when it starts, and Treeza's little group is pressuring her to go for the damned Cornucopia. I shouldn't have let them be her allies."  
  
Treeza wouldn’t have much of a chance either way, and we both know it, but neither of us says it. If Chicory can get over his fixation on "the pretty boy," he might do better. "I'm glad she hasn't really processed it all," I say. "I'm actually glad she's had a little fun indulging a crush."  
  
"I just hope he's not the one who kills her."  
  
I stay up with Haymitch, watching television and trying not to remember that the children will most likely die in a few hours. I doze off, and when I wake up, I'm in my room, wrapped in a light blanket. I haven't slept here often -- he usually likes me to go home -- and I don't really recognize it for a few seconds.  
  
The children are already gone, taken away from the roof to fly off to the arena. Haymitch and I have breakfast together, not talking, then I go off to the escort meeting to cover any etiquette issues this year, and he goes straight to the Viewing Center. I join him there just before ten. The screens are blank, except for the main broadcast screen, where Claudius Templesmith is nearly salivating over the Games to come.  
  
I sit and wait for the countdown to begin.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the arena, Finnick's popularity with the public translates into gifts, but engenders the jealousy and hostility of his fellow tributes.

I hear all of the mentors swear when the cameras reveal the arena for the first time.  
  
The tribute circle around the Cornucopia is on a bowl-shaped beach. To one side is choppy sea water. The other sides seem to be covered with a forest of knife-like standing rocks, arid and unforgiving. The whole arena seems to be shades of red and beige and brown, desert colors. There is no green to hint at drinking water or edible vegetation. The uniforms are brown, tight-fitting tank tops, beige hiking pants, and heavy-soled brown boots.  
  
I glance at Haymitch's purchase list. I have no idea what he saw in the catalog, but he's already prioritized a gallon water bottle for each of them -- usually the last thing he'll buy, since he'd rather not have them leave a trail of water bottles. He must have analyzed things while I was at the escort meeting.  
  
The gong sounds.  
  
Treeza and her friends try for the Cornucopia. Haymitch tightens his fists until his knuckles turn white, and clenches his jaw. There's nothing he can do. It's too late to mentor her in training, and too early to try and nudge her with sponsor gifts.  
  
I'm not sure who it is who cuts her down, but at least it isn't Finnick Odair, who's with the inner district kids, and is using his smaller size to dodge the fights on the way to the Cornucopia. When he gets there, he starts tossing them weapons. He does kill Albert Ingersoll from Seven, but it seems to be self-defense. Albert's not _much_ of a threat, but he does attack first, and Finnick picks up two of the knives that are lying there and defends himself quite efficiently.  
  
More kids than usual avoid the Cornucopia this year. They must be looking at the arid arena and thinking of getting to safety. Chicory is one of these, apparently deciding at the last minute to actually listen to Haymitch. He meets up with Batten Stone and Eloise Tate and they run through a canyon of standing rocks, putting as much distance as they can between themselves and the battle on the beach, making for the high ground.  
  
At the Cornucopia, only five die. Treeza and Albert are the first. The rest of the younger group -- both of the kids from Six and the boy from Three -- go down in the fighting. The six inner district kids take control of the Cornucopia and all of its supplies.  
  
Haymitch goes to call Treeza's parents.  
  
"We should get off the beach," Finnick says. He grabs Dempsey and points at the rocks behind him. His district token, a circle of leaping fish that he wears around his neck on a leather string -- flashes in the sun. "High tide is way above here. We should make for high ground."  
  
"They won't douse the Cornucopia every day," she says. "Don't be dumb."  
  
"They buried the Cornucopia in volcanic ash once," Finnick corrects her.  
  
"So, what… now you can't swim?"  
  
Finnick looks at her like she's crazy. "That's the boundary of the arena. Do you really think it's not stocked with shark mutts?"  
  
"Fine." Opal Delong, the girl from One, gathers up an armful of swords and binds them with a rope. "We'll make for the hills."  
  
"Well, _we_ will, anyway," her district partner, Blaze, says, giving a snort.  
  
Finnick doesn't bother not understanding. He moves sideways and goes to Dempsey's side. "We need to go," he says.  
  
" _I'm_ not going anywhere." Dempsey pulls a knife.  
  
Finnick jumps back, avoiding the stab to his side. He grabs her arm and twists her around, then shoves her at the others. Manlius Norton from Two manages to throw a spear before she hurtles into him, but it's very wide of the mark. Finnick grabs the spear but no supplies, and runs for the interior of the rock forest.  
  
"Do we bother chasing?" Paulina Seldon asks.  
  
Dempsey shrugs with practiced indifference. "He won't make it to nightfall without us looking out for him. His parents take care of _everything_ for him. He just fishes for his own money. They have more than enough, but somehow, they always manage to bring in the biggest catch. Crooks." She looks at the rocks. "He's not wrong about the tide line, though. I still doubt they'd drown the Cornucopia every day -- if the tide was going in and out all the time, those rocks would have broken down a long time ago -- but something got them wet, and there's a little seaweed on them. There are at least going to be some big waves." She looks around. "Let's find a tide pool and see if there's anything to eat."  
  
Haymitch is just coming back from the booths when Mags Donovan attacks her mentoring partner, Harris Greaves.  
  
It happens so fast that I don't even realize what's going on. There's a crash, and by the time I look up, Harris's chair is on the ground, and Mags is holding a knife over him. "We had a deal!"  
  
"I'm sorry!" Harris shouts. "I made the deal in good faith!" He scoots backward, but he's trapped in the architecture of the chair. "I told Dempsey not to go along with it!"  
  
"But you knew there was something to go along with?"  
  
"The way they've been pushing him, like he's already crowned?" Harris manages to get himself out of the chair. He dusts himself off, and stays more than an arm's length from Mags. "I told you from the parade on, he's got a target on his back. I could have told you at the reaping, but you wouldn't listen. Just because you let him go clamming on your private beach -- "  
  
"I pay him to dig them for me."  
  
"Oh, right, and he doesn't walk out with the best ones to sell at market, just because you and Carolyn are thick as thieves."  
  
Beetee, the District Three mentor, steps between them. "Both of you, stop it. The rest of us need to concentrate, and you're not helping."  
  
"You don't exactly need to concentrate anymore, do you?" Harris asks. "Your boy rushed the Cornucopia with a bunch of twelve-year-olds."  
  
"And I just got off the phone with his parents," Beetee says coldly. "But Wiress and I still have Sidiki to worry about, and I'm not going to let your temper tantrum -- "  
  
" _My_ temper tantrum -- "  
  
"-- interfere. And yes, your tantrum. Your girl broke a signed alliance. Mags has every right to be angry."  
  
Harris rights his chair and slams it back down at the table. Mags pulls her chair as far from his as she can get it, and does not let go of the knife. Their escort has been manning her phone the whole time, and a second and third line are ringing madly. Berenice Morrow, from Six, who already lost her tribute, sits down timidly at the District Four table and starts answering for her. Mags hands her a pen to take information.  
  
"Victors," Haymitch mutters, sitting down beside me. At the next table, Chaff grins. Haymitch shakes his head. "Effie, Mrs. Murphy wanted to thank you for the stunt with the wig. She understands what you meant to do, and says she's sure it made Treeza happy to see such a famous lady copying her hair." He says all of this in a cool and detached way.  
  
I nod. "She's more than welcome. Chicory hasn't gotten far. Everyone's settling in now."  
  
"Except Mags and Harris?"  
  
I gesture at the screen. "Did you hear it?"  
  
"Saw it through the wall of the booth. Harris is lucky Mags didn't cut first and ask questions later. Did you spot any water?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"Get on the water bottle, then. I don't see anything either."  
  
And that's that. I have enough for three gallons of water, but it's impractical to carry them, and Jack and Cecelia, who've moved to our table for the alliance, have enough for their own tributes. We call in the order as soon as the kids are out of sight of the next nearest group of tributes. If they need another, it will be more expensive.  
  
With the tributes all wandering through stone canyons, Claudius decides to take the opportunity to introduce the arena. The stone features, he says, are called "hoodoos," and they are a native feature of the area not far from the Capitol, though of course, those in the arena are re-created to form their own island. The map comes up. The island -- which is most likely just a moated fortress -- is shaped like a lopsided whale with the Cornucopia in its open mouth and a narrow isthmus to the wide, broad tail. They don't show us what kind of terrain is there. There's a high, bare area at the far north end, but the rest is covered by the rock forest, and steep, sharp mountains.  
  
"You ever hike in the mountains around here?" Haymitch asks me.  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Mimi used to. I remember she said she used to."  
  
"Miss Meadowbrook?"  
  
"With her friends. She'd know what kind of animals there are. I bet if it's local geography, they're using souped up versions of the local predators."  
  
"Did you want me to call her in?"  
  
He considers it, then shudders and turns back to the screen. "No. I just thought she might have taken you hiking on one of the Capitol Dreams outings."  
  
I try to imagine Miss Meadowbrook hiking. I can't quite get a picture of it in my head. Haymitch must have her mixed up with another girlfriend. "Well, we didn't go. But I think there were some outings up into the foothills. There are probably safety brochures."  
  
"Send a runner for one. Half the Gamemakers were in Capitol Dreams, I bet, and that's what they'll be thinking of."  
  
I grab one of the little messengers running around and tell him to go look for a hiking brochure at the compound, in the activity center. He looks like he has a million questions, but he doesn't ask them. He just goes.  
  
By the time he gets back, Chicory's alliance has found a little alcove of rocks that's either protected on three sides (according to them) or boxed in on three sides (according to Haymitch). They allow themselves a few swallows of water, then cap the bottles.  
  
"Now what?" Eloise asks. "We just camp until someone comes looking for us, or a mutt attacks? Or do we start hunting?"  
  
"Hunting with _what_?" Chicory shakes his head. "We're unarmed. We have to make some weapons."  
  
Batten picks up a heavy rock. "There are plenty of these. We could take our shirts and make slingshots. I mean, obviously, we'd have to share them for Eloise…" He blushes.  
  
She shrugs. "Mine would probably be better. It's got a double holster" -- she makes a show of cupping her breasts, which the shirt has a built-in support for -- "and it's very tough."  
  
The boys laugh, and they all agree to stay clothed against the sun at least until they figure out what they're doing.  
  
"What's with your district?" Cecelia asks Jack. "You were half stripped down before you were in there an hour. I know you're not logging naked. That wouldn't be comfortable."  
  
He laughs. "It's just not a big deal. There are swimming holes at a lot of the logging camps. You work, you get sweaty, then you shed your clothes and jump in the water. No one thinks twice about it -- well, unless you're alone with someone cute."  
  
Haymitch rolls his eyes. "Why do I think you didn't lack for company?"  
  
"What can I say? I was the Finnick Odair of my day, in the misty lost memories of two whole years ago."  
  
On screen, the Finnick Odair of this day has worked his way up to the highest part of the rock forest, and is looking out across the northern plateau, which offers no shelter or water. There are a few scraggly bushes trying to grow in the rocks.  
  
"Well," Finnick says. "Where there are bushes, there's water. So Mags, I'll find it!" He grins sunnily at the sky, as if he's not at all troubled by being exiled, friendless, hungry, and armed with only a spear.  
  
He goes back into the hoodoos, taking a steep path down to the floor of the canyon-like formation. The plateau is at the top of what, on this side, looks like a solid cliff. Finnick starts following it.   
  
Chaff leans over. "Well, _this_ looks familiar."  
  
"I was at the top of the cliff," Haymitch says. "Totally different. _And_ I was looking for the end of the arena."  
  
"What do you think he's looking for?"  
  
"Water. Did you miss that?"  
  
"But he thought the trees would have water."  
  
"Right. So he's looking for a way under the trees. To wherever they're getting their water from. He's trying to find a cave system."  
  
Chaff shakes his head. "If chess pieces thought like people, I'd never beat you, would I?"  
  
"Only if they were thinking like they were in an arena."  
  
Chaff has to break off the conversation, because his tribute, Swather, has managed to startle the Games' first mutt, a snake with a tail that makes a rattling sound. Swather managed to snag a backpack from around the Cornucopia, but he doesn’t have any weapons, and has to improvise. He ends up killing it with a large rock, but he's taken a bite, and Chaff puts his energy into buying some antivenom.  
  
Like most years' first day coverage, the commentators don't seem to know what to do with themselves now that the tributes have finished the blood bath and split up. They're exploring their surroundings now, and the media long ago decided that no one is interested in watching this.   
  
Except for Haymitch, of course.   
  
While Chicory and Eloise set up a watch and Batten looks for food, Haymitch tunes in to each of the remaining groups and starts a rough map of where they all are and what's around them. Finnick has found a fissure in the rock wall and slipped into a dark cave under the north plateau. The inner district kids have made it all the way to the "tail" of the island, which turns out to have a small forested area, complete with fruit trees. Vannivar Simmons from District Five is attempting to climb the hoodoos, using the laces of his boots to make what looks like a really inadvisable rope. Swather has joined up with his district partner Poppy Hughes, and D'Arcy Hoff, from Five. They've found a second, tiny strip of beach. Chester Henry from Nine and Orabelle Erbe from Ten are still wandering the canyons, somewhere in the middle of the arena. Six more tributes are wandering around alone. The terrain all looks more or less the same to me, but Haymitch is absorbing all of it as quickly as he can.  
  
The runner returns with our hiking brochure. The rattling snake seems to be, as Haymitch suspected, a local threat. There are also largish cats, coyotes (which I've never seen, but sometimes heard howling), and a good number of spiders. Haymitch studies them and starts going over the antivenoms on the purchase list.  
  
In the late afternoon, Vannivar's makeshift rope breaks, sending him hurtling fifty feet to the rocky ground. The cannon sounds immediately. I don't look when they show the body.  
  
Finnick's cave turns out to have some sunlight in it, from small holes in the ground above (Haymitch rolls his eyes at their attempt to paint this as a coincidence). Momentarily safe, he starts trying to concoct weapons from whatever he's got at hand.  
  
"I wonder why Mags isn't sending him anything," Jack muses. "She must have enough money for a knife -- at least -- by now, since he lost the ones he had at the Cornucopia."  
  
"I'm not sure," Cecelia says. "I've never come close to having enough to buy an actual weapon. First day? She really might have it, even with all the calls."  
  
"Or she's just feeding him," Haymitch says, pointing at the main screen, where a parachute is dropped through one of the sunlight holes in Finnick's cave. It has an extensive picnic basket. He grins directly toward one of the supposedly hidden cameras and says, "Thanks! That'll help."  
  
He digs in.  
  
No one else is sending food. I check the price list -- it's no wonder. Even today, before the prices have started to go up too much, it's exorbitant, and I'm guessing Twelve isn't the only district to lose sponsors to Finnick Odair.  
  
Since even Finnick can't make the act of eating a sandwich particularly interesting to an audience, they finally switch away from him, and go to the main body of the inner district group. Dempsey is crouched at the shore of the sea, digging in the sand. Manlius is testing fruits for toxicity. The others are counting up their haul from the Cornucopia.  
  
"Do you want to go for the loners first?" Paulina asks. "Easy prey."  
  
"Once you _find_ them," Opal points out. "It's easier to look for the groups, and it might be smarter to take them on while we still have all of us. Well, minus Finnick."  
  
Blaze snorts. "Yeah, whatever will we do without him to grin everybody to death?"  
  
They all laugh.  
  
In the end, they don't go hunting that first night. The arena is inhospitable, and all of the tributes spend their time arranging food and water. To my surprise, the little money Haymitch and I scraped together is apparently one of the bigger amounts -- we could afford to send more water (at least at the moment) if it's necessary. The inner district group has the stash from the Cornucopia, but otherwise, the mentors are scrambling. They'd been counting on the alliance with Finnick, and they're pretty much flat broke. Their phones aren't ringing. Neither is ours. Even with only Eloise to work with Jack is tapped out. Cecelia is still trying to spread money between Batten and her girl, Audrey Lewin. (Technically, Woof is looking after Audrey, but his memory is spotty. Cecelia says that he fell on the ice in the river trying to stop a girl from running at the fence. He hit his head, and the girl ended up bringing _him_ back into town. He was unconscious for two days, and woke up not quite right.) They each got water, but she can't even begin to touch food. Orabelle and Chester have nothing at all.  
  
With three districts in the alliance -- three mentors and three escorts -- we're able to give each other decent breaks. I don't envy the production crew, which is struggling to fill the mandatory viewing hours. Because Finnick made an oblique reference to Haymitch's Games, they actually call him in for commentary, something they rarely do. We all watch. He tries to take the opportunity to talk up Chicory, but the analyst, Herodion Lake, insists on bringing it back around to Finnick, even bringing up the same comparison Chaff did, about walking along the cliff. Haymitch is decidedly less amused by it this time.  
  
"You spent your first several days in the arena alone," Lake says. "No allies, no company. How do you think Finnick -- and the other singletons, of course -- are feeling right now?"  
  
"Same as the ones in alliances," Haymitch says. "Scared. Being alone won't set in for a while. It starts to feel strange."  
  
"Do you think your tribute, Chicory King, would team up with Finnick if the opportunity arose, like you teamed up with your district partner?"  
  
"It's hard to know what someone will do in the arena…"  
  
"But with the inner district alliance rejecting Finnick Odair, he would seem to be a good ally to make."  
  
Haymitch looks about ready to hit something or someone, but he manages to control himself and remind Lake that he has no way to communicate to Chicory that Finnick wouldn't be a plant from the other alliance. He doesn't mention that Chicory despises Finnick… and probably would have despised Maysilee Donner for being a "merchant girl." It wouldn't make any more sense to the broader audience than it does to me.  
  
He's in a bad temper when he gets back and resists when I tell him to take a break, so I make up a question in dire need of discussion (whether or not to send Chicory purifier pills, given that as far as we can tell, he'll be dependent on bottled water), get the District Eight escort to watch our phone, and take him to a dark corner of the mentor's lounge for dinner.  
  
He stabs moodily at a pasta dish, stirring it around his plate, but not eating. I give him water, which he wrinkles his nose at.  
  
I wait for him to settle down a little. "Do you need anything?" I ask him.  
  
"I need them not asking me questions about someone else's tribute," he mutters. "Think you can swing that?"  
  
"And not asking questions about when you were there?"  
  
"I don't care."  
  
"I don't remember you ever talking about it. Not really."  
  
" _You're_ going to make me talk about things like that?"  
  
"Not unless you want to. But you've been… hinting at it. Talking about Maysilee. Joking with Chaff. You even mentioned Miss Meadowbrook. You've never really talked about her. She talks about you a lot."  
  
"She does? Still?" I nod. He rubs his head. "I'm sorry about what happened to her. I shouldn't have… Or should have… I don't know. I don't know what I was supposed to do. I probably should have kept up with her. But after Capitol Dreams, she just seemed so… I don't know. Out of order. I'd have ended up doing something worse if I'd tried to stick around."  
  
"You thought something was wrong with her, so you left her?"  
  
"I'm not Prince Charming, Effie. You know that better than anyone." He looks at the light coming through the door to the main room. "First time I met her was my Victory Tour. She paid for the privilege. If the Odair kid wins, how many people are going to pay for _that_ privilege?"  
  
"It's just a donation for the party…"  
  
"No, Effie, it's not." He's quiet for a long time, then says, "Okay, yeah. My head's been back in the arena. I don't know what it is about the kid, but he's got me thinking about it all the time. Maysilee. Beech. Gilla. My old escort, Gia. Mostly me." He shifts around uncomfortably. "He's a rich Career district kid with more sponsors than I ever dreamed about having, but there's _something_. Every time I close my eyes, I'm back there in the woods. Looking for something." He rolls his eyes. "And the pretentious poet comes back for an encore. Sorry."  
  
I shrug. "It's all right. I figured it was something like that. Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"Is this the new escort duty? Therapist to your victor?"  
  
I look down. "Actually, I thought we were getting to be friends."  
  
He laughs, but it's not his cruel laugh. More rueful. "Getting to be friends? Effie, we've been together six years now. These are the seventh Games for us, aren't they?"  
  
"I thought it was the sixth." I frown. "I lost count. I guess it is the seventh."  
  
"At any rate, the only friends I've known longer than you are Beetee and Chaff and Seeder, and we spend half our time plotting against each other when we're together."  
  
"What about at home?"  
  
"Shockingly, I'm not a popular party guest in District Twelve. I talk business with people who used to be my friends, but that's about it." He raises an eyebrow. "And don't act like I'm the only one. You spend the year with sponsors."  
  
I smile. "Guilty."  
  
"You don't actually need to ask about water purifying pills do you?"  
  
"No."  
  
He nods. "Thanks, Effie."  
  
We don't talk much over the rest of the meal, but he seems a little calmer. Not any more cheerful, but calmer. He sends me off to sleep and goes back out to the table, and wakes me at about three in the morning so that he can catch a few hours.  
  
The Gamemakers make it rain at eight o'clock, and the thirsty tributes run out and drink. Finnick finds a freshwater spring under a rock in his cave.  
  
On the second day, the inner district kids go hunting. They catch Audrey Lewin, weak from lack of water, crawling out from the cover of the rocks to get to one of the fresh rain pools. They taunt her before they kill her. When they're finished with her, they start searching the interior of the island. They come across Dorothy Merriott, from District Nine. Apparently, they're bored, because they make a sport of tossing her around like a ragdoll before they dash her head on the rocks and drag her to the sea. Paulina crows about how she wants to prove that it's not just about getting the supplies, but about being _better_ than the rest of the field. This gets their phones ringing, albeit somewhat feebly.  
  
There is rain again on the third day, and the remaining tributes spend the day hunting animals for food, and trying their hands at eating the scrubby vegetation they've found. Dempsey harvests some seaweed, but barely escapes an attack from a shark. She spends the day trying to convince the others in her alliance to grab spears and hunt the sharks for dinner, but she has no luck. Chicory and his allies manage to find a veritable feast -- three lizards caught in clever little traps, followed by a soup Chicory brews from the leaves of the scrawny trees.  
  
Swather, Poppy, and D'Arcy are exploring the barren hilltop on the fourth day of the Games when they spot one of the air holes leading down to the cave where Finnick has been hiding. Poppy suggests an alliance. Swather and D'Arcy are less than enthusiastic, but she manages to convince them to try.  
  
Finnick is out of the cave hunting -- he comes back with a dead snake over his shoulders -- and he misinterprets their presence. He raises his spear.  
  
There's a brief fight. None of the alliance kids has a weapon, other than Swather's sheer strength. Finnick manages to spear Poppy… the first tribute who's sought him out for an alliance. Swather grabs him and throws him down, screaming about ingratitude while Finnick tries to explain himself, but it's to no avail. They fight to a standstill, and Finnick ends up abandoning his cave. He tries to approach Chicory's group, but they fight him off. (Haymitch is tearing at his hair through this.) He has no better luck with Rollin Yazzie from Ten, who's been wandering alone for days and has gone strange. He attacks Finnick, and the two of them fight viciously, wounding each other and finally driving each other back. Finnick retreats into the canyons, looking for another hiding place. He is very close to Sidiki Lattimer from Three, but she doesn't come out of hiding.  
  
There's coverage for three days about why such a personable child is having such a hard time with the other tributes. They dig up Chicory's school records and report on his altercations with several boys in District Twelve ("All town names," Haymitch mutters), and try an exposé down in District Four… on Dempsey's bad attitude.  
  
The money keeps pouring in to Mags. She sends Finnick top-of-the-line medicine for his wounds from the fight with Rollin, which heal rapidly. She has more phone lines installed, and a small staff of runners answering them for her. No one knows how much she has, but she's obviously saving for something. Blight has stationed himself with her to help. I remember him saying that he knows Finnick's parents. Six days in, he's confronted by several other victors, accusing him of actually giving financial support to another district while one of his district's tributes is still alive.  
  
"I bought a squid," he says through clenched teeth. "I cook. They're expensive. I thought I'd try one. I have seafood on the brain for some reason."  
  
There's a great deal of grumbling, but no one can say for sure that he didn't, in fact, buy a fish. The fact that the fishmonger turned around and sent most of it to Mags _could_ have been a coincidence.  
  
Haymitch doesn't care.  
  
That night, Finnick runs across Blaze while both of them are hunting… Finnick for food, Blaze for victims. The fight is long and brutal, but Finnick is more skilled with the spear than Blaze is with his hunting knife. He goes down. Finnick takes the knife. He uses it to scratch a "4" into the soft stone nearby. His face has become no less beautiful, but there's something cold in it now.  
  
When the inner district kids realize that Blaze is dead and see Finnick's mark on the rock, they guess -- correctly, according to Haymitch -- that he's calling them out. They have a long conference. Dempsey still suggests leaving him alone to die, but they point out that he's been thriving, contrary to her predictions. Paulina suggests that Dempsey is really still trying to protect her district partner. Opal concurs. Manlius doesn't. The accusation is enough to make Dempsey indignant, and in the end, they decide to put their combined strength into hunting down Finnick the next morning.  
  
Mags tallies her sponsorships and goes upstairs to the Gamemakers… an action generally taken when a mentor wants to buy something out of the ordinary, something off the list.  
  
In the dead of night, a parachute lands beside Finnick, with a long, sturdy package attached to it.  
  
A trident -- a fishing spear from District Four. Finnick takes it in his hands.  
  
We won't know it for another day, but the Games are over.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Finnick fights his way out of the arena, Plutarch tries to re-establish contact with Haymitch.

Finnick picks up the trident and holds it loosely in his hands. It is about as tall as he is. The shaft is made of black metal. At the tip is a three-pronged fork, bright steel that seems almost white in the moonlight of the arena. Finnick closes his eyes for a minute, then opens them and looks at the trident again. He nods.  
  
The coverage cuts back to the studio, where Claudius tells us breathlessly that he sent for experts on trident fishing as soon as the order went in. Most fishing tridents are barbed, but Finnick's isn't -- it would make it too easy for the weapon to become stuck. The experts -- Capitol men who fish our lake as a hobby -- are enthusiastic about how a fisherman like Finnick will use the tool.  
  
While they're talking, Haymitch has re-trained our screen to Finnick's feed (Chicory is asleep, anyway). Finnick is scrambling along the cliff face, stripping off dried plants and seaweed. He finally seems to find what he's looking for -- a dried vine-like plant that comes off in long, rough strings. He pulls down an armful of the stuff, then sits down in the shadow and starts tying knots.  
  
Beside me, Chaff swears under his breath.  
  
Haymitch looks over. "What?"  
  
Chaff scribbles something on a piece of paper and shoves it at Haymitch. The word I see -- "Retiarius" -- means nothing to me.  
  
Haymitch doesn't seem to know it either, and looks blankly over at Chaff.  
  
"Net man," Chaff says. "Net _fighter_. I would have thought you'd have read everything about gladiators."  
  
"I don't read about the Games when I'm not here," Haymitch says.  
  
Chaff shakes his head. "Seeder, hand me your shawl."  
  
Seeder frowns, and takes off the net-like shawl she's thrown over her shoulders. "What for?"  
  
"Demonstration."  
  
I lean forward to watch and find out what Chaff is doing as he folds the shawl into a little square. Suddenly, his hand moves. The shawl flies out, and it's over my head. It's lightweight, and I can't think how it could possibly hurt me.  
  
Until he pulls the corners tight. I try to move my arms, but I can't.  
  
Chaff picks up a knife and holds it over me. "Try to fight," he says.  
  
I can't even move my hands up to block the blow. Even when he lets go of the scarf, I've managed to twist it around myself in the struggle, and I can't get free of it until Haymitch deliberately unwraps it and hands it back to Seeder.  
  
"The Gamemakers in Ancient Rome," Chaff says, "used to have fighters who killed by using fishing tools. People thought they were cowardly, because they ran away a lot instead of fighting blow for blow -- they didn't have any armor, and the other guys usually did -- but I wouldn't want to face one."  
  
On screen, Finnick keeps knotting. He's got several vines coming down from one anchor, and he's making tight little diamond shapes. His face is utterly blank.  
  
"That kid's going to be messed up if he makes it out," Jack says.  
  
"As opposed to the models of good adjustment that the rest of us are?" Haymitch watches for a minute or so, then turns to me. "I'm going to get some sleep. Wake me up in three hours and then you get a few hours."  
  
I nod, and he goes away.  
  
There's really no reason for anyone to be awake and manning our phone. No one is calling us. Mags's lines are still going, and a few people are helping her answer them, but other than that, the Viewing Center is as still as most of the arena.  
  
I strike up a conversation with Jack about his assistant, Linden, and learn what I can about District Seven. It seems like as good a thing to do as any.  
  
By the time I'm supposed to wake Haymitch, Finnick has several rows of netting done, and I've been chatting with the District One escort about some trends we've seen for winter fashion. I'm exhausted, and glad it's time to get some rest.  
  
I'm about halfway down the aisle of beds when I hear Haymitch's voice.  
  
"You know I have no idea what you're talking about, Plutarch. Loyal citizen here."  
  
"I'm _clean_!" another voice says. I assume it's Mr. Heavensbee's, though I haven't heard it enough to say for sure. "And I'm not trying to trap you. Just telling you… well, sorry I was gone so long. We were friends before."  
  
"No, we weren't."  
  
"Sure we were. And if you can trust your escort, you can trust me!"  
  
I stop, frowning, and sink back into the shadows.  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Haymitch asks, his voice low and dangerous.  
  
"Just that she's been in Capitol Dreams, too. And you trust _her_."  
  
"Effie's completely, totally, and unquestioningly loyal to the Capitol. Go away."  
  
"I'm not trying to trap anyone. And if that's true, I'm surprised you do trust her."  
  
"She's a decent human being, which puts her way above me and you and most of the other people I know."  
  
"But she's not… one of your _friends_. I seem to remember you pushing someone else away -- that actress -- because of Capitol Dreams, and you're sure pushing me away at light speed, but -- "  
  
There's a scuffle and suddenly Mr. Heavensbee is shoved out into the aisle. Haymitch is holding the front of his shirt. "You listen. And whoever's listening can listen. I'm not pushing Effie Trinket anywhere. She's a great escort, and I'm glad to have her -- "  
  
"It's not bugged…"  
  
" -- and I don't give a rat's ass about anything else."  
  
Haymitch glares at Mr. Heavensbee, then gives him a light shove. He scurries away into the dark. Haymitch looks toward me, then smiles and rolls his eyes. "Good timing."  
  
I come out of the shadows. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop. You said to wake you up."  
  
"Plutarch got here first," he says, coming over. "That wasn't a show for your benefit. I really mean it. I don't care what your politics are."  
  
"What's going on, Haymitch? Why does Mr. Heavensbee think you can't trust me?"  
  
He shrugs. "He doesn't. The Capitol thinks I'm involved in a rebellion. I think he's trying to get me to say something incriminating."  
  
"Are you?"  
  
"Am I what?"  
  
"Involved in a rebellion? They gave me a file on you when I came. They said you burned down the Peacekeepers' office in Twelve."  
  
"It was well deserved."  
  
"So… are you?"  
  
He looks at me steadily for a long time, then says, "I'm not going to tell you lies, Effie. But don't ask me that."  
  
I nod. "So, you were telling them that I'm not a rebel."  
  
"Why? Are you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Why not? I know you hate watching the kids die every year."  
  
"I do. But Haymitch, how many more would die if there were a war? You told me that you read history books. You know what wars are like."  
  
"Yeah. But…" He rubs his head. "Is this peace, Effie? Really?"  
  
The question makes me uneasy. It should be simple. We're not at war. There are no battles. Nothing is blowing up. We're enjoying the peace of the Capitol.   
  
But Trill and Babra.  
  
Hecky and Mercy.  
  
Donkid and Windy.  
  
Kelman and Dotty.  
  
Berry and Ronka.  
  
Nasseh and Sunny.  
  
Treeza. Most likely Chicory.  
  
But it's not _war_.  
  
"I don't know," I say. "But I know I don't want bombs to start falling."  
  
"I don't either. Not really." He takes a deep breath, and reaches over to hold my hand. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to let anyone start targeting you. I kind of need you."  
  
"What did you mean about not pushing me away?"  
  
"Exactly what I said. I don't care what you believe about the Capitol, or peace, or bombings. I care that you help the kids when we bring them here. I care that you keep me from going off the deep end, so _I_ can help them. I'm not going to walk away from you just because you're… well, because we might not agree on everything. I did that once, and I regret it." He smiles a little bit. "Don't tell Mimi I said that. She'll get maudlin."  
  
"I won't," I say. "And for the record, you _can_ trust me with your confidences. I wouldn't have told her anyway."  
  
"You could trust me with yours, if you ever gave me any."  
  
I laugh. "I wish I had a secret to tell you at the moment, just so I could trust you with it. I mean, other than the fact that just now, I have a wild desire to kiss my boss until he can't breathe."  
  
"You have truly terrible taste. Unless you're talking about Caesar, I guess. He's decent." He grins at me, and for a second, I think it's really going to happen, that he really means to _let_ it happen. Then he just presses his lips to my cheek. It's friendly, and maybe it lingers a little more than it should, but that's all. "You should get some sleep," he says. "Tomorrow's going to be bad."  
  
It turns out to be beyond bad.  
  
One of the runners wakes me up at dawn, because the battles have begun. When I get out to the District Twelve table, Haymitch and the others are staring at the screen in horror.  
  
The inner district kids, thinking that they've found easy prey, go to the area where Finnick was last night. They're trapped against the cliff face. Finnick drops rocks on them, stunning them, then starts to use the two weighted nets he made. He traps them and spears them through the neck. Their blood rushes out, and he pulls out the spear without even looking, moving on to the next in his trap.  
  
At the end of it, he's covered with blood. His green eyes gleam out from the reddened mask of his face. The cannon goes off four times. Eloise Tate has been foraging nearby, but he doesn't see her. He sits down on a rock and waits for the claw to lift the bodies away.  
  
Eloise rushes back to her camp.  
  
"Finnick Odair's gone crazy," she announces to Chicory and Batten. "We have to get away. He just killed all of the other Careers."  
  
"No way," Batten says. "It's not possible."  
  
"Someone sent him a weapon. He's good with it."  
  
"What kind of weapon?" Chicory asks. "We can guard."  
  
"I didn't see all of it. It's some kind of spear. And a net."  
  
Chicory snorts. "Sounds terrifying."  
  
"It's a spear and a net more than _we_ have," Eloise points out.  
  
"So what do you want to do?"  
  
"Make an alliance with him."  
  
"Make an alliance with the crazy guy?" Batten says. "That doesn’t sound like a good plan."  
  
"He _wanted_ an alliance. If we're with him, maybe he won't kill us."  
  
"I think it's beyond that," Jack says. "We have to tell them no. Haymitch, what do we have? What can we send them?"  
  
Haymitch shakes his head, not looking away from the screen. "I've got nothing. I think their best bet is to get away from where they are. Someplace where they can run easily, and he can't drop that net. The north part… the bare land above the cave where Finnick hid. The wind will catch the net, and he can't trap them against the stones."  
  
"But they'll be in plain sight," Cecelia points out.  
  
"So will Finnick." Haymitch bites his lip. "I can't think how to send them there. They already decided not to stay there. But maybe… Finnick listens to Mags. He asked for her. He tried to work with his district partner. _Maybe_ he'll listen to Eloise. But not if she can't get his mind off killing them."  
  
"It's the Games, Haymitch," Jack says. "And he's started to hunt. I don't think he's going to stop thinking about it until the trumpets go off."  
  
Haymitch nods. There's nothing else to say.  
  
Finnick continues to hunt, his nets tucked into his belt, his trident held at his shoulder. He spies Chicory's alliance just before noon. Chicory and Eloise are sitting side by side -- the worst possible way to guard against a net -- when he finds them. He traps them both before they see him coming, and they're gone in seconds. Batten manages to fight a little, but doesn't last much longer. Finnick has killed eight people in five hours. Claudius assures the viewing audience that this is a Games record. Combined with his earlier kills, he's tied the total kill count record for an individual tribute already -- ten -- and is in a position to "smash" that record before the Games end.  
  
All three mentors go to call the families. I feel queasy. I barely make it to the bathroom before I throw up. I think of Finnick sitting calmly in the Remake Center, waiting for Mags, speaking to me so politely. I can't square it with what I'm seeing in the arena.   
  
I try to go home, but the streets are full of merrymakers, many of them cheerfully playing at being net-men, miming Finnick's kills. A young woman makes a lewd suggestion about how she'd like to get her hands on his spear. The man she's with laughs and asks if he can watch.  
  
I run back inside. The mentors, at least, aren't having a party.  
  
Finnick continues to hunt. There are two pairs of allies left -- Orabelle Erbe from Ten and Chester Henry from Nine are still together. Swather's alliance of three is down to two -- he's still working with D'Arcy Hoff, from Five. Other than that, Rollin Yazzie is wandering around the island's tail, talking to someone who isn't there, and Sidiki Lattimer is hiding in her little lair not far from the Cornucopia. Finnick finds her shortly before sunset.  
  
"Why are you still here?"  
  
I look up. Haymitch is standing beside me. I realize that he's been away from the table for hours, and has started drinking. He's not especially drunk yet, but his eyes are red and his speech is starting to slur. "I don't want to go home," I say.  
  
"Fair enough. Mind if I do?"  
  
I shake my head. "I'll check on you tomorrow."  
  
"You do that."  
  
He disappears.  
  
I stay up at the table alone, watching the tributes navigating the arena. Finnick isn't asleep, but he looks like he's in some kind of trance, sitting in Sidiki's lair and recharging. The telephone rings.  
  
It isn't one of the outer lines. It's the Gamemakers' line, which almost never rings, and shouldn't ring at all once a mentor's tributes are dead.  
  
I pick it up. "District Twelve."  
  
There's a pause. "Is this Miss Trinket?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Plutarch Heavensbee. I need to meet with Haymitch at my place. About… about next year. Something we're thinking about, and I want his opinion."  
  
"He's gone. He's back at the apartment."  
  
"I tried calling there. I thought that's where he'd be."  
  
I suspect Haymitch routinely ignores any phone that's not on the table in the Viewing Center, but it seems the better part of valor not to mention it. "He's… well, he's not feeling well."  
  
"Drunk?"  
  
"Not feeling well. We lost our tribute today."  
  
"I know. I'm sorry. But tell him to meet me at my place tomorrow morning." He gives me an address. "It's very important."  
  
I hang up and head across the plaza to the Training Center. I take the elevator up to the District Twelve apartment.   
  
Haymitch is sitting on the couch, drinking straight from the bottle and watching the Games. At the moment, Claudius is giving the history of the now-deposed record-holder for most individual kills, a boy named Divine Carew, who slashed and hacked his way through ten tributes during the fifth Games, bringing District One the first of its many victories. There was a joke for a long time that those Games should be known as "Divine's Retribution." Man-on-the-street interviews look for a nickname for these Games. "Beauty Bests the Beasts" seems a popular theme, though some want to riff on the "Odair"/"I dare" sounds.  
  
"Mr. Heavensbee wants to see you tomorrow morning," I say after a while.  
  
"No," Haymitch says. "I'm done for the year." He is clearly much drunker than he was earlier. His words bleed into each other. He almost drops the bottle, and has to fumble for it with both hands. "Hasn't he been watching his own Games? I'm… done."  
  
"He says he wants to run something by you for next year."  
  
"No he doesn't. They can't run Games things by mentors. He wants to get me to say treason." He laughs and says, "Treason! Hey, Plutarch, you hear it? Treason!"  
  
"But he said it's about next year's Games. It could be important. Or maybe useful, anyway. Maybe you could pick up a clue."  
  
"You go. Find out what he wants."  
  
"I think he wants to see you."  
  
"Anything the Gamemakers say to me they can say to you. I'm not doing anything against the law. You hear me?" He looks wildly up at the ceiling.  
  
"You should sober up, or you'll still be hung over --"  
  
"You go," he says again. "I'm done, Sweetheart. Duties dutifully discharged."  
  
I sigh. "All right. I'll find out what he wants. You should go to bed. Do you need help?"  
  
He looks at me crossly, then seems to surrender, and nods. I help him up and put his arm over my shoulder. He's sober enough to hold his own weight, but I have to steer. In the morning, I doubt he'll remember that there _is_ a meeting.  
  
I put him down on the bed and toss a blanket over him. He catches my wrist and kisses my hand. "Want to stay?" he asks. "I want you to stay."  
  
"Ask me when you're sober."  
  
He smiles. "I know better when I'm sober."  
  
"That's kind of my point." I pull myself away from him -- a feat that's more difficult some years than others, and this is the worst it's been -- and go back out to the living room. I watch the Games coverage for a while, then, once everyone is definitively asleep, they cut to an old movie about the founding of District Four.  
  
I wake up a little bit after dawn. The television is still on. They're interviewing Mags about Finnick, but it's been interrupted by D'Arcy Hoff, fishing on the smaller beach, the one away from the Cornucopia. She's managed to stick a large fish with a sharpened stick, but in the studio, Mags is yelling at her not to eat it.   
  
"It's lethal," Mags says, looking at Claudius, wide-eyed. "She can't…"  
  
But D'Arcy hasn't had anything proper to eat for days. She rips the raw flesh from the fish and swallows it while it's practically still quivering.  
  
The convulsions start five minutes later. The cannon takes another half an hour. By the time she dies, her ally, Swather, has found her, and he holds her as she shakes her life out on the sand. I look over my shoulder and see Haymitch standing at his bedroom door, watching. When she dies, he goes to the bathroom, and I hear him start to retch.  
  
I ask if he needs anything. He tells me that he needs me to go to Mr. Heavensbee's meeting. I'm surprised he remembers it.  
  
I go home to change my clothes and put on a new wig, then head out to the address Mr. Heavensbee gave me. It's not far from my place, actually -- another one of the gleaming glass apartment complexes on the lakeshore. Mr. Heavensbee's building is a delicate shade of yellow.  
  
The doorman rings me up -- just saying "District Twelve is here" -- and when I get there, the door is ajar.  
  
"There you are," Mr. Heavensbee says. "I was about to call and cancel. My shift at the simulators starts in -- " He turns and sees me. "Miss Trinket. I was expecting Haymitch."  
  
"He's… he says you can tell me whatever you meant to tell him."  
  
"It's not a matter of _telling_." He shakes his head. "I wanted to talk to him about the mines. It's been a long time since there's been an arena particularly friendly to District Twelve. I can't say everything, of course, but I wanted his opinion on, um…" He frowns, agitated. "I wanted to ask him how the miners see when it's dark underground. And what animals might live in mines. We often ask victors about their districts, you know."  
  
"Animals in the mines," I repeat. "I… don't know."  
  
"Which is why we wanted to speak to Haymitch," a woman says, coming out of Mr. Heavensbee's kitchen. She looks cross. I've seen her before. The last few years, she's been something of a hanger-on at Capitol Dreams functions. There are always a few. She shows up in fashions two seasons out of date, her hair messy and her expression dogged and determined. Capitol Dreams events welcome everyone who comes, but I doubt she was ever directly invited to one. "I'm sorry, Miss Trinket, but you don't have his expertise."  
  
"Haymitch never worked in the mines either," I point out. "In Twelve, no one goes to work until they're eighteen… at least not in the mines."  
  
"His parents were miners," the woman says brusquely. "Surely, he's heard something. We _needed_ to see him."  
  
"Are you a Gamemaker?" I ask.  
  
"This is Fulvia Cardew," Mr. Heavensbee says. "My partner. She was helping me with some ideas. We were hoping Haymitch would have some insight."  
  
"I don't think he'd want to help design an arena," I say. "Besides, that wouldn't be fair to other districts."  
  
Mr. Heavensbee snorts. "Haymitch would _love_ to try his hand at making an arena. He just won't admit it."  
  
I decide not to engage this. It's not entirely untrue. "And wouldn't an underground arena have bigger problems than what animals there are? Like clean water? And how would you drop the parachutes?"  
  
"Obviously, there would need to be a different delivery system," Fulvia says dismissively. "That's not what we needed to discuss. Haymitch wouldn't know about that, at any rate."  
  
I have a feeling that Haymitch would be thinking -- despite himself -- of half a dozen ways to deliver sponsor gifts underground, but I believe Fulvia that they didn't call him here to talk about it.  
  
"Is there anything I _can_ do?"  
  
"Get him sobered up and send him over," Mr. Heavensbee suggests.  
  
"He won't come."  
  
"Of course he will."  
  
"No. He… well, he says he's done for the year."  
  
"Plutarch can order him to show up," Fulvia says.  
  
"That would hardly be helpful." Mr. Heavensbee sighs. "I hope he'll reconsider. We were friends a long time ago. I was on his Victory Tour with him. I -- " He shakes his head. "Miss Trinket, would you tell him that I mean him no harm at all? I've always been fond of him, and I just hoped we could strike up our friendship again. That's all. And here," he says, rummaging around on a table, and coming up with a piece of paper. "It's a bread recipe for his friend. Tell him it's from the Capitol. He never did collect one here."  
  
He hands me the paper. It's a recipe for a fancy kind of bread -- half a cake, really -- that's often served at overnight parties. For some reason, he's edged the paper with exquisite, hand-drawn feathers. "I don't think he and the baker are friends anymore," I say.  
  
"Give it to him, anyway."  
  
I nod and take it. "I'm sorry I couldn't help."  
  
"Quite all right. I'm sure Haymitch thought he was doing the right thing. I'm sorry he troubled you with it."  
  
He turns away, and that's that. I leave the apartment and go back to the Training Center. Haymitch has started drinking vodka-spiked orange juice. I give him the bread recipe.  
  
He stares at it with a lot more attention than I think it probably deserves, then puts it carefully into a briefcase. He dumps the spiked juice and switches to water. He hadn't gotten very far in the day's drinking, and he's sober again in an hour.  
  
"Well," he says, "I guess Plutarch really does need to see me. About animals in the mines." He rolls his eyes. "Does he even know how toxic the water can be down there?" With that, he leaves.  
  
I turn on the television. Swather has taken D'Arcy's death hard, according to Claudius. He's been preparing for a hunt of his own. He manages to find Chester and Orabelle. None of the three of them are armed, but Swather is huge, and the arena is strewn with rocks. He dispatches them easily, and the field is down to three: Swather, Finnick, and Rollin Yazzie, who is still wandering madly around the end of the island.  
  
Finnick has his net out again, and is stalking along the Cliffside at the north end of the island. He and Swather spot each other, but they're separated by a deep bay.  
  
Swather jumps in the water. Claudius is very excited about sharks, but it never comes to that. He's caught in a current that drags him out.  
  
Finnick sets down his trident and moves to dive.  
  
"Ah," Claudius says. "Is Finnick Odair finally making an error? In District Four, of course, it would be habit to save a drowning man. Finnick will have been raised on this from early childhood. Will he risk being caught in the riptide himself? Could Rollin Yazzie outlast both of his final competitors?"  
  
Finnick has stripped down to his shorts and shed his shoes, but he suddenly stops.  
  
He stands up. Picks up his trident.  
  
And watches Swather Brooks drown.  
  
The cannon sounds.  
  
The rest of the day is the same as the end of any other Games: Two tributes, both nearly feral, circling one another warily. Rollin is outwardly crazier than Finnick, talking to himself and answering someone or something that isn't there, but Finnick seems completely withdrawn. (Commentators refer to this as "the concentration of the alpha predator.")  
  
They finally come to blows at sunset on the beach. The blows don't last long. Rollin all but surrenders. Finnick throws the net over him -- a formality -- then spears him in the throat like the others.  
  
He kneels down beside the body, hand still on his trident.  
  
The trumpets sound, and there is a new victor.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The post-Games Finnick-mania keeps Effie at Games headquarters, where Finnick is recovering in the training center.

Security around Games headquarters is tripled when Finnick is brought back to the Training Center hospital to recover. I can't enter or leave without showing my badge at four checkpoints, and each building has a separate code.  
  
I can't argue with the necessity of it. Finnick Odair's Games are not like the others, and there will be no rest for anyone involved, at least not any time soon. Instead of interest moving on from the Games to the next fashion, passions about the Games are getting more intense. I've seen on television that Finnick's fans are absolutely wild. Fishing trips on the lake are booked for the first time since they started having them. Designers are working nets into all of their collections. The Gamemakers can barely keep up with public demand for more about the boy from Four -- they've been reduced to airing hour-long specials about his favorite foods and colors. Reporters pester Mags for quotes from Finnick and stories about his childhood. A producer promises a movie as soon as he can find someone decent to play the part. They keep showing shots of his hospital room window, though it would be impossible to see anyone not standing right there.  
  
"I don't get it," Cecelia says in the Mentors' Lounge, where several of us gather the first night, waiting for Mags to come down with news of his condition. "He seems like an all right kid, and he's certainly beautiful, but no one's brought up anything interesting enough to hang a story on."  
  
"Beauty makes you interesting," Jack says. "Sad fact of life, but it's true. People didn't know anything about me except the way I looked, but I ended up on _Panem's Most Fascinating_ my year… and I've got _nothing_ on Finnick Odair. He'll be number one on the list, easy, even if he opens his mouth and can't talk competently about anything other than fish."  
  
His escort, Barnabas Laird, says, "You made the list because I worked my contacts. It got you good sponsors."  
  
"Did you read the article?" Jack asks. "It covered the vital questions of my hair care regime and what kinds of make-up I might like to try, now that I can afford it. And of course, the ever present questions about my ideal girl."  
  
Beetee sighs. "It's never made sense to me."  
  
"Human nature," Haymitch says, shrugging. "If you're waiting for _that_ to change, better be prepared to sit a spell."  
  
Mags comes down a few minutes later. Finnick isn't in bad shape physically -- the usual dehydration, a few cuts and scrapes -- but he's withdrawn and jumpy. Since they want him to be "natural" with the cameras, they're going to send in a counselor and give him a week.  
  
"A week to recover from killing half the field," Cecelia muses. "How generous."  
  
"He'll be okay," Mags says. "He knows what the Games are. He didn't want to play, but they weren't going to let him sit it out." She sits down. "That's what the trident was really for, you know. There wasn't anything he could do with it that he couldn't do with the spear he already had. But when he was little, he used to talk to me about the Games, and what he'd do if he got reaped. You know, the kind of thing all the kids do -- "  
  
"Maybe in Career districts," Cecelia interrupts.  
  
"Maybe," Mags says. "I don't know. I know that it's common enough in Four. I didn't think much of it. Anyway, he was fishing from my dock when he was about nine, just starting to think about being eligible for reaping. He was always good with the trident, and he killed a good number of fish. He said that's what he'd do in the arena. Just like fishing."  
  
"So why didn't he do it with the spear?" I ask.  
  
Haymitch looks at me. "My brother used to make traps for me to break out of, and he'd ask how I'd get away from someone in the arena. I always had an answer. But it's different when you're really there. It's one thing to say, 'Yeah, I'd take them out and get away.' It's something else to actually stick a knife into a kid's neck."  
  
"Exactly," Mags says. "I sent him the trident to remind him what he said… and to give him permission to do it. So he'd know I wouldn't hate him, and his parents wouldn't hate him."  
  
"There'll be other parents who will," Beetee points out.  
  
"Aren't there always?" Mags raises an eyebrow at him. "I don't remember people being overly fond of _you_ after you electrocuted boys you didn't even try to fight."  
  
"I never could have beaten them. I was sixteen, but I was small."  
  
"So's Finnick. If he'd wasted time trying to take them on even ground, someone else would be upstairs recovering right now, and you know it."  
  
No one argues with this point.  
  
"So," Jack says, "how should we welcome our new club member?"  
  
They joke in a lazy way for a while about hazing rituals that will never happen (new victors are not generally in any fit state to be hazed; that will wait a while, if it happens at all), then we all head upstairs to sleep.  
  
I go home the next day, meaning to commute back and forth since Haymitch has decided to take meetings with Plutarch Heavensbee after all, and there's no reason for me to stay on the grounds. In fact, there's no reason for me to commute routinely, since I'm only on call -- available if Haymitch needs me to take care of something for him. I could go back to my apartment, do some end-of-Games paperwork, and set up meetings for Haymitch all in the comfort of my own breakfast nook. I usually come in two or three times to make sure he has what he needs for sponsor meetings, but otherwise start to decompress and pull away from the Games. It's what I've done every year after the first.  
  
Getting out of headquarters is a nightmare. Crowds throng in the streets, hoping to get a view of Finnick through the hospital window. Many young girls (and some not terribly young girls) are carrying homemade signs proposing marriage and declaring their eternal love. When one girl thinks she catches a glimpse of red hair at an upper window, she actually faints. Girls around her scream Finnick's name wildly. The news covers this extensively. They call themselves "Fannicks," and they are repeatedly interviewed about their passionate arguments over Finnick's best moment in the Games, and who loves him the most.  
  
It takes me forty minutes to get through the tightly-packed crowd, and it's all the Peacekeepers can do to hold them back from storming the plaza. By the time I catch a cab back to my apartment, I know that my only options are staying home and not coming back at all, or staying in the Training Center apartment until the Games are over. I opt for the latter. I don't want to navigate that crowd again if there's an emergency. I pack several days' worth of clothes and supplies and brace myself to get back in.  
  
It's even worse coming back, since people recognize me and actually try to snag my badge when I present it to the guards. I almost scream when several of them tear at my wig, and the world goes glassy and fragile around me. The Peacekeepers have to pull them off me and escort me behind the line. When I get in, my hair is askew and my clothes are wrinkled and even torn in a few places. I take a few minutes to catch my breath and let my heart slow down. I'm glad for the relative peace of the elevator up to the apartment, though its glass sides do give me a particularly disturbing view of the crowd I just came through, which is two blocks deep around headquarters in every direction.  
  
"Moving in?" Haymitch asks when I drop my things inside.  
  
"I decided it would be easier," I say.  
  
He takes in my appearance. "What happened to you?"  
  
"Did you see the crowd?"  
  
He goes to the window and looks out. "Wow," he says. "I suddenly feel anonymous. No wonder Plutarch decided to have our meetings at headquarters. He's probably staying here, too."  
  
"So you met with him?"  
  
"Yeah. I doubt we're going to see an underground arena for a long time. There's no _way_ that they're just conceptualizing for next year. Next year's arena's probably done except for the mutts. I think that was a carrot-and-stick thing. See if he could tempt me to meet with him by implying that there'd be clues."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"And I'm not helping them build an arena."  
  
"I told him you wouldn't want to."  
  
"They'd have to come up with a whole new delivery system for the sponsor gifts. Underground, I mean. You could have mine shafts coming down for parachutes to go through, but you couldn't know that tributes would be anywhere near them… unless there were so many that there wouldn't be much point to being underground. They'd have to have something like false walls that you put things on conveyor belts for, and a system for doors or something to open up at any point on the path."  
  
"Water would be hard, too."  
  
"In a mine, yeah. But if they just did a cave, you could have a clean underground lake. Maybe a river. The lighting would be hard, but they always fake the lighting anyway." He bites his lip, and I remember Mr. Heavensbee saying, _Haymitch would_ love _to try his hand at making an arena. He just won't admit it._ I still don't believe Haymitch would want to build anything to help kill tributes… but his brain just can't help turning over the problems. He catches me looking at him, and says, defensively, "I didn't say any of that to Plutarch. Though I guess with the bugs, he just heard it anyway." He looks up at the ceiling. "Congratulations, Plutarch! You're the first Gamemaker to trick me into playing the damned game."  
  
"Have you already started drinking?"  
  
"A little bit."  
  
"I wish you'd stop. You're too smart for that."  
  
"I wish you'd stop wearing that ridiculous make-up and those silly wigs. We all have wishes."  
  
"Well, you heard what Jack said last night -- beauty makes people interesting."  
  
"In that case, you'd be a thousand percent more interesting if you let people see your real face."  
  
"So would you."  
  
He looks at me shrewdly, then goes back to the window. "I guess Chaff and I won't be playing chess in the park this year. Think they'll get us cars to go to sponsor meetings, instead of having to walk through that mess?"  
  
"I'll see about it," I promise.  
  
We spend the rest of the day not doing much at all. Since he doesn't want to brave the crowd to go shopping, I help him buy some clothes for the year over the city networks, to be delivered to him out in Twelve. We go down to the lounge, where he and Chaff attempt to teach me to play chess, but I'm lost and end up wandering over to the spa, where Seeder and I have manicures. I get her to tell me a little bit about District Eleven, where the earth is red and people can easily go without coats most of the winter. ("And generally go _un_ easily without them for the rest of it," she mutters). She tells me about funny men and women who wander the fields, talking about retribution and atonement. I tell her about the men here who wear hair shirts and slap themselves in the face at the lake shore. She asks why I didn't stay home like the rest of the escorts. I can't think of a good answer.  
  
Mags comes downstairs for a while, and Haymitch and Chaff go up to sit with Finnick. Cecelia rolls her eyes and says someone should go up and make sure they're not getting him drunk. When they come down so Finnick can get some sleep, Beetee goes up to keep an eye on him.  
  
"Is this what you usually do when I go home?" I ask Haymitch as we go back up to the apartment for dinner.  
  
"Mostly." He leans against the wall. "It can get scary waking up in the hospital. We all know it. Chaff and Seeder and Beetee were with me."  
  
"What about your mentor?"  
  
"I didn't even know Drake was my friend until the Victory Tour. And even then, I wasn't sure."  
  
The elevator door opens. I go straight to the table and order up a couple of meals. "Does Finnick know what's going on outside?"  
  
Haymitch nods. "He's got a television in there. I don't think he's really absorbing it, though. He's still pretty out of it." He goes to the bar and pours himself a drink.  
  
He continues drinking through the evening, getting progressively drunker as we watch television on the couch. He's sober enough at first to poke fun at the Fannicks, but as Games coverage gives way to a marathon of _Nero the Fiddler_ (a soap opera about a composer trying to make a splash, and his misadventures with assorted friends and lovers), he becomes first maudlin, then weirdly sentimental.  
  
He's not a mean drunk -- in fact, the only times I've seen him be genuinely cruel, he's been stone sober -- but he does keep trying to hug and kiss me until I tell him that if I have to move his hands one more time, I'm going to brave the crowd and go home. He makes a great show of sitting on his hands for the next half hour, then passes out and sleeps through the night. I put a blanket over him, and let myself kiss his cheek. He smiles in his sleep.  
  
I don't have anything to do, so I go to his room and borrow one of his books. I take it back to my room to read. It's a locked room mystery, nothing anyone would object to. He probably only bought it because it takes place in District Twelve, though the writer is a Capitolite, of course. Haymitch likes to read this sort of thing mostly so he can complain about it, as far as I can tell. In the story, a dead miner is found alone in a chamber after a cave in, stabbed in the back. They've been digging for two weeks, but he's only been dead for a few hours. No one could have come or gone. I try to guess it. The simple answer -- that he rigged the knife somehow and fell backward onto it in order to frame an enemy -- seems too easy, and I guess it must be something else, but I can't figure it out. The bulk of the book is the detective Peacekeeper, with his slow-witted but trustworthy miner sidekick, interviewing everyone the dead man ever met.  
  
This one is obviously fully approved by all of the authorities. I think it's even sold here in the Capitol. I suspect that Haymitch collects books that _aren't_ approved, but he'd never show them to me, let alone bring them here. I sometimes wonder what's in those books that makes them dangerous, but I know better than to go looking. Like Miss Meadowbrook says, there are some doors it's better not to open, because you'll never get them closed again.  
  
I read until I drift off, and dream that I'm the sidekick miner, and Haymitch is the detective. He's determined that somehow, the Gamemakers did it. I try to explain that there are no Gamemakers in the book, but he won't listen. He says they are planning on feeding the dead man to the Fannicks, which will magically calm them down in some way.  
  
He's still passed out when I go out to get breakfast in the morning, but he's passed out in a new place (the love seat), so I guess he got up at some point. He's holding a knife in one hand. I decide it's probably better not to shock him awake.  
  
I decide to go to the hospital and see if anyone needs anything.  
  
Jack is in with Finnick (though I can see through the door that both of them are sleeping), and Mags is sitting at a little table in the corner of the waiting area, breathing in the fumes from her empty coffee cup.  
  
"Can I get you another?" I ask.  
  
"Thank you," she says, holding the cup up. I go down the hall and re-fill it, and get one for myself as well. By the time I get back, Jack has woken up and is walking blearily toward the table. I hand him my coffee and go back to get another.  
  
"…and extra guards," Mags is saying quietly when I return. "Every exit. The whole entrance area downstairs. They're vetting the staff, too."  
  
"About what?" I ask.  
  
"Someone leaked footage," Mags says. "It was on this morning. Nothing terrible -- just Finnick washing up -- but it means someone's in here with an unauthorized camera."  
  
"Or an authorized one," Jack mutters. "Could be surveillance footage. We know they have cameras in the training room to keep tabs on tributes. Why not the hospital?"  
  
"Which is why they're vetting Games staff," Mags says, then looks at me. "Not you, honey, they know you've been upstairs. Hospital people. Security staff." She laughs humorlessly. "We have to secure the security staff."  
  
"Will he be safe back in Four?" I ask.  
  
"Oh, his parents are as good with tridents as he is," she says. "And frankly, I've kept up with my slingshot. I think we can keep him reasonably sheltered for a little while."  
  
A nurse with a cart of meds goes by us. He turns into Finnick's room.  
  
"Keep him sheltered as long as you can," Jack says. "Mags, it's going to be ugly if these people get their hands on him."  
  
"That was supposed to be _over_." Mags crushes her empty coffee cup and tosses it into a wastebasket. "Years ago. Jack, you shouldn't let them."  
  
"I extracted some privileges in the trade," he says. "It's been made clear that I'll lose them -- possibly in an irrevocable way -- if I don't hold up my end of the bargain."  
  
I think about Jack's Games, about the way he and his friend took solace in each other. And I think of the women he now squires around the Capitol.  
  
I try not to understand the trade he's talking about.  
  
There is a sudden clatter from Finnick's room, followed by a scream of revulsion.  
  
"Get off me! _GET OFF!_ "  
  
We drop our conversation and run inside.  
  
The nurse is crouching under the window, his hands raised above his head in supplication. Finnick has grabbed one of the dozens of flower vases in the room and is holding it like a club. They're both breathing hard -- the nurse in terror, Finnick in fury. It's the first I've seen of him since the arena. Most of the kids are pretty wasted when they get back, just from the privations of the Games, but Finnick ate and drank well, and wasn't in the arena very long. He looks just like he did at the parade, except murderously angry.  
  
"What is this?" Mags demands. She takes the vase from Finnick, but doesn't show any signs of letting go of it herself. She insinuates herself between them.  
  
"I only wanted to _see_ him," the nurse says. "I'm an artist. I've been drawing from memory. I had to sneak in. My sister works here. I borrowed her uniform. I just had to look at him!"  
  
"Yeah, well, apparently he's blind, then," Finnick tells Mags, "since he was looking at me with his fingers, in places I _better_ not find out he's been drawing."  
  
Jack grabs the man off the floor and shoves him into the wall. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"  
  
"He's just so beautiful. I was just going to look. I swear I was just going to look!"  
  
Jack shakes him and bangs his head into the wall again. And again. He collapses, semi-conscious.  
  
The guards finally show up.  
  
"Guess you'll be arresting me for assaulting a Capitol citizen," Jack says, offering up his wrists for cuffs as the attacker is dragged away.  
  
The Peacekeeper in charge, not bothering to hide his disgust as he glares after the arrested man, says, "You know, this once, I'll let it slide." He grimaces. "I have a sister who's fourteen years old. If it were her, it wouldn't be the guy's _head_ I'd smash into oblivion."  
  
He leaves.  
  
Finnick goes back to bed. He grimaces and fumes, but definitely doesn't look withdrawn.  
  
"Are you all right?" Mags asks.  
  
He rolls his eyes. "I've dealt with grabby old people before," he says. "Remember Duffy Monahan? She had more hands than your average octopus." Suddenly, his surly expression breaks, and he smiles. On camera, it would look good, I'm sure. In here, I can still see him with the vase raised above his attacker's head… or a trident raised against his fellow tributes. He strikes a pose. "What can I say? I'm cursed with irresistible beauty."  
  
Jack shakes his head. "That was an attack, Finnick, not a flirt. Don't confuse the two."  
  
"I know. But… you know. I can deal. I'm good." He shrugs. "I guess that settles the question, though."  
  
"What question?" I ask.  
  
"Well… I wasn't sure I'd be able to fight anymore," he says. "You know. After… after what I did. In _there_. I guess I can still fight enough."  
  
"That's good," Mags says. "Because you're going to have some fights coming up."  
  
He looks out the window at the mountains. "If I give them what they want -- if I give them a good show, and I tell jokes… they'll let me go home, right? The counselor they had in yesterday kept saying I was supposed to get back to normal before the closing events."  
  
"I think that's the idea," Mags tells him.  
  
"Then I'll work on it. I'll make sure I can keep it up for a while. Can I wave to the crowd?"  
  
"What?" Mags asks.  
  
"The crowd. The" -- he winces -- "the _Fannicks._ Can I wave to them? Then they can all see that I'm all right. And we can get this over with, and I can go home."  
  
"I don't think that's a good idea," Jack says cautiously.  
  
Mags weighs her options. "Try it," she says. "We're safe up here, so if… well, they can't very well climb the building to wave back."  
  
Finnick gets out of bed and goes to the window. We're high up and behind thick glass, so I can't actually hear the crowd, but when he raises his hand and waves to them, they all rush toward the Peacekeepers' restraining line, waving frantically and blowing kisses. Finnick blows one back.  
  
Jack yanks him away from the window. "Don't push it. You don't want them thinking of you kissing them."  
  
Finnick rolls his eyes. "Oh, come on. It's an air kiss. I've been tossing them around since I was four."  
  
"I _mean_ it."  
  
Finnick studies Jack's face for a minute, then holds his hands up in surrender. "Okay, fine. No kisses."  
  
This seems to be it. Finnick keeps up his manic good cheer for ten minutes, then seems to sag. He goes back to bed. Mags stays with him. Jack and I go down to the lounge and meet Haymitch and Beetee for breakfast.  
  
At around ten, the news anchor starts teasing "exciting developments" about Finnick, with exclusive footage. At the noon news hour, surveillance footage from the hospital comes on, showing the entire attack, and Finnick's violent, immediate response. The point seems to be that he's come out of the arena undamaged and ready to take on the world.  
  
The Fannicks are furious, crying in rage on the street that anyone would dare to hurt him. They want the man -- now identified as "Portraitist Licinius Blythe" -- to suffer.  
  
Before the afternoon is half over, he has. An angry mob crashes into his studio, destroys his artwork, and breaks the bones in his hands.  
  
I am in the waiting area with Seeder and Mags when this happens. Finnick comes out of his room, looking pale. Mags goes to him and puts her arms around him.  
  
He makes no more appearances at his window, and is excruciatingly cautious through all of his closing interviews. He's careful to praise all of his fellow tributes and their brave, mourning families. He explains that passions get high in the Games, and no harm was meant by any of the things he hears them say on the final release of the Games. He thanks Peacekeepers. He thanks Gamemakers. He thanks every victor he can list, and the people of District Four, and the escort from Four, and me. The persona he adopts otherwise is carefree and good-humored, with just an edge of flirting that he seems totally unable to control, no matter how many times Jack tells him to stop it.  
  
At the end of the final interview, Caesar asks him, "If you could say one thing to your many fans -- and I promise, you can! -- what would it be?"  
  
"Well, they already know I love them, right?" he says. "So I guess I'd say… thanks for, um…" -- he loses the thread and settles for just smiling for a minute (a split screen shows girls sighing in ecstasy) -- "… for caring," he finally comes up with. "Thanks for caring about me, and now you should go home and take just as good care of yourselves."  
  
This is parsed by several analysts while the trains are loaded.  
  
I go down to the station with Haymitch, and get him settled in the cold car between Treeza and Chicory. I can see the three open wounds in Chicory's neck.  
  
"They've already forgotten that these two ever existed," Haymitch says.  
  
I don't have an answer for this. I just kiss his cheek and squeeze his hand. I ask him to put his phone back so I can reach him if I have to, and he ignores me. I tell him that I'll see him next summer, like always.  
  
But the strangeness of these Games isn't over yet, and I end up seeing him a good deal sooner.


	15. Chapter 15

Generally, Games fervor in the Capitol lasts for about three weeks after the Games end. Bettors explain their bets, interesting trivia about the arena becomes coffee shop talk, and magazines publish glossy pictures of the victor. Games with victors from Four and One increase tourism to their resorts (the only two resorts outside of Capitol territory, other than the arenas themselves). There's the opening of the arena for visitors, usually in mid-October, and the constant efforts of the media to jump on new material, but really, by the end of fall, the new victor is just another celebrity, like the rest of the victors from the beginning. News comes up and people gossip. Some victors are more interesting than others, and they get a little more play, but by the time the Victory Tour comes around, the Gamemakers are making a concerted effort to get people's attention.  
  
They usually start small in District Twelve because the coverage itself is what gets people interested again. The first day is something of a throwaway, even though it's mandatory viewing. People are just getting settled and remembering that there _is_ still a new victor. Twelve usually gets a few shots of coal being stoked to give the impression that things are heating up again, then the Games are recapped during the actual events. There's no need for anything fancy. By the time the train rolls into the inner districts, interest is sufficiently fired up, and there's more of a production. Haymitch says that for once, this favors Twelve, since they don't have to put on a big show, which they can't afford, anyway.  
  
It's all very routine, and very predictable -- except for this year.  
  
Interest in Finnick doesn't wane. Reporters and photographers from the fashion and fan magazines are routinely sent to District Four (which is warm and sunny and has a beach, so they don't object), and they get pictures of him swimming, fishing with Mags, making a great show of racing Harris along their private beach, helping Mari Lynch (who won the Thirty-Third Games) corral her children for a picnic. They aren't interested in his parents, who aren't famous… and who aren't at all popular with his fan base. His father is seen as boorish and ignorant. His mother -- unseen except in the blurry background of one photograph -- is flatly hated for "abandoning" him, not appearing during the Games for the usual run of interviews. "She doesn't deserve a son like Finnick!" is a common refrain. Finnick does take time to rebut this, saying that he loves his mother, and his district token was a barrette of hers, strung from one of his father's fishing lines. He wanted to have them in the arena with him in some way, because they are the most important people in his life.  
  
This has no impact whatsoever on perception. Stories float around the Capitol, published in smudgy handmade magazines, in which Carolyn hates and ignores her blameless son, who only begs for a scrap of attention from her. She resents him for being beautiful and good. Many of these stories posit that Finnick is actually a Capitol child, kidnapped from his real parents and raised by pretenders. His real mother -- usually a famous actress or singer -- finally recognizes him and brings him home, where he finds true love and understands who he really is, usually with the help of the girl whose parents once made a pact with his real mother that their children would someday marry.  
  
I only read one of them, which my manicurist hands me while my nails dry, but there are plenty of reports on the subject, along with pictures of the explosion of amateur artwork, much of it showing Finnick standing in the glimmering shallows on the beach with a halo of sunlight around his head. The press can't get enough of the craziness.  
  
As a result of all of this, as December comes around, the Capitol is still in the grip of Finnick-mania, now also called "Four-vor" and "Finn-scination," and those of us who work in the outer districts are called in for a meeting with Caesar. The Gamemakers have decreed that the opening stops on the Victory Tour will be as grandiose as the later ones. More money is expected to be spent, and the look must be just right. They're hoping that this kind of dedication will stick, and future Games can also bring in money throughout the year. To that end, we will all be going out to our districts three weeks ahead of the Tour to get things in order. Every stop must have interesting material for the cameras, beyond the standard speech. They want people in the districts talking about Finnick, and how excited they are to have him.  
  
I raise my hand. "There's no extra money in District Twelve. And… well, as far as getting Fannicks out in the districts -- he _did_ kill quite a few of their children. There may not be Fannicks to find. I know it's part of the Games, but we can't expect them to…"  
  
"I don't," Caesar says. "But there are always people who want to be on television and will say anything. Or girls with crushes, I guess." He wrinkles his nose in distaste. I'm not sure he realizes this. "As to the extra money? Of course it has to come from the District citizens. We'll be sending up crews to collect the extra donations a week before the Tour starts. I had a long conversation with Haymitch about it, over the mayor's line. He says he thinks the money can be found." He stares at me, and I understand: Haymitch is going to pay for it. He'll have to hide it, because the districts are supposed to be showing off their resources and sharing the cost, but somehow, he'll come up with it. We are also given a budget ourselves to make sure that there is proper food and drink, which I suspect is coming directly from Caesar.  
  
I call the small inn at the edge of town and arrange for a room for three weeks. The woman on the other end seems astounded; apparently, they don't usually get long-term visitors. She tells me I can have "the very best room," which has a view out over the town square. I pack a lot of warm, fairly practical clothes.  
  
My train leaves five days later. It's not our usual transport, just a single passenger car attached to a coal train, which is much slower. I travel with an executive for the mines. He spends much of the trip complaining about having to go all the way out to Twelve just because a few of the lazier miners have managed to convince the foreman that there's a safety issue with the depth they're digging at. "I already pay for more safety equipment than anyone else in Panem," he gripes. "Your boss agitated for air filtration systems, _then_ wanted masks on top of it. And of course, victors get whatever they want. You really must have stories to tell."  
  
I tell him that I get along quite well with Haymitch, which he takes as an opportunity to grill me about my "availability," as long as the sleeping berths in the car are so cozy. I lie and tell him that Haymitch has taught me how to use a knife, and I'm very good with it. This seems to curb his interest in the subject. I decide to ask Haymitch to actually teach me.  
  
We pull into District Twelve early in the morning, three days after leaving the Capitol. Haymitch is waiting for me at the platform. He's surprisingly sober.  
  
"I've had a lot of work to do," he says dismissively when I mention it. "No time to get drunk. I don't suppose you brought any of my medicine, though? Because I don't think I can keep it up much longer."  
  
I sigh. "It's in my bag. A full course takes six weeks. They wouldn't let me bring enough to get you all the way through it."  
  
"Of course not." He shrugs. "I'm not looking to get reformed, anyway. I just need to keep it together for a couple of weeks, same as I do during the Games." A porter comes to the platform with my baggage. Haymitch looks at the bags, bemused, then says, "Well, I guess I can get a couple of kids to carry it."  
  
The porter goes back. Haymitch piles my bags in the shelter, promises me that no one will have time to steal them, and leads me toward town. There are ragged-looking children on the way to school, many in broken shoes that let in the cold, dirty snow.  
  
"Hey!" Haymitch calls, and a black-haired boy turns and looks at him suspiciously. "You're one of the Purdy boys, right?"  
  
He nods. "Cammern."  
  
"Cammern. You got some brothers, right? They around?"  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Miss Trinket's got some bags. You think you have time to take them up to the inn before school? I'll pay you three coins per bag. You can pick which coins. I'll come by after school with the money, and your mama can see how much you help."  
  
The boy's eyes go wide. I doubt he's seen three of any denomination of coin at the same time in his life. He yells for his brothers (Jed and Dale, apparently), and the next thing I know, they're piled up with my bags and headed for the inn.  
  
"Sorry," Haymitch says. "I don't drive. No car. It's probably better that way."  
  
"It's good to give them work," I say.  
  
"Yeah, I've been hiring the kids around here to do a bunch of little errands lately," he says. "You'd be surprised how much there is to do, when you start thinking about it. Trees that need cutting down. Snow to shovel. And of course, if some of the tougher kids are doing chores like that for me, I have to hire someone to look after their brothers and sisters, since they can't do it at the same time."  
  
In other words, he's been disbursing his money as fast as he can, so that when they come to collect for the Victory Tour, it will look like it's coming from the district instead of from him. I'm guessing there's a little bit more with each "payment" than is strictly agreed on, too. I hope the tax collectors don't decide that this means District Twelve can afford to pay more on a regular basis. I doubt even Haymitch will be able to think of _that_ many chores.  
  
We walk into town together. The sky above us is a pale gray that seems to erase the horizon, blending into the grayish white, snowy ground with only a distant blur to separate the two. A light snow starts to fall while we cross the square. Haymitch stops beside a splintery bandstand. "What do they really want to do?" he asks. "Caesar wanted to find _fans_."  
  
"Caesar knows they might not be… well, entirely sincere."  
  
"He wants me to find _actors_."  
  
I shrug. "Unless you know some real Fannicks. Are there any in the school?"  
  
"Why would I know what's going on in the school?" he asks. "I used to go there and try to figure out who we were going to kill next, but I got a strongly worded request to cut that out. I don't know _any_ kids anymore, except the tributes. People aren't crazy about me getting to know their kids, given where kids I know end up."  
  
"That's not _your_ fault."  
  
"Maybe not."  
  
"Definitely not. Remember, I watch the whole thing every year. You do everything you can."  
  
He stares at his feet for a few seconds, then says, "Thanks, Effie." He looks up. "I haven't been out around here for a while. It's been cold work the last couple of days. How have you been? Is the Capitol still crazy?"  
  
"Oh, I'm fine. And Four-vor is still in full swing."  
  
"New guys in your life?"  
  
I think about it. "I went on a date in October, I think. I don't remember who it was."  
  
"You should get out more. You're turning into me."  
  
"The men in my life all seem to think there's someone more important to me."  
  
He sits down on the bandstand's low rail and crosses his arms, looking away from me. "We have to stop that, Effie. All of it."  
  
"I --"  
  
"I know. I'm not oblivious. To you _or_ me. Do you know what I've been doing most of this fall?" He doesn't wait for me to answer. He just smiles ruefully. "I've been coming up with scenarios to make it work. Any way to let this happen without them taking you away. How to hide it, make the Gamemakers think it's not important. Once I even did a scenario where I made a really good argument and solved the problem. I even thought about running away to the out-districts." He looks at me and we both laugh at the idea. "But they fall through, Effie. Every single scenario falls through somewhere. If we hid it, they'd find out. If I pretended it was just about… you know… I'd have to be a way better actor than I am. And they'd never listen to an argument. There are more important things to argue about, and they don't listen to that, either. There's just no way. Not the way the world is now. And I don't seem to be changing the world very much."  
  
"What about the out-districts?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, you shot down the other possibilities. Maybe I could learn to live in the woods."  
  
He laughs. "No, you couldn't. Neither could I, really."  
  
"Probably true."  
  
"And besides -- if Twelve's only living victor were to disappear with his escort, they'd take it out on the district. We're all nice, caged-in hostages here." He sighs and stands up. "So, that's that. Unless you have a good argument? Which I sort of hope you do."  
  
I shake my head. "I can't think of one. I think you've thought of everything, and then just a little bit more."  
  
"Then I guess we better get you to your room."  
  
We start moving again, and don't talk until we get to the inn, where the boys carrying my luggage are just leaving. I thank them and try to give them each a little tip, but apparently, that's not the custom here. They look offended by it. Haymitch waves it off. He says he has errands to run, so the innkeeper, Mrs. Shannon, helps me get my things upstairs.  
  
"I hope you like the room," she says. "It's better than the one you stayed in last time. Comfier. Bigger. You'll have room to spread out a little bit, since you'll be here a while. Your room and board covers three meals in the dining room. You'll find the menu on the dresser, but if you want something else, you just ask. My husband loves to try cooking new things, and if we have the ingredients, you're welcome to order anything."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"My little girl Sarey is awfully eager to meet you. She loves your clothes. If she starts bothering you, let me know, and I'll call her off. She knows better than to pester guests."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure she'll be fine," I say. "I only brought a few fancy clothes for the Tour, though."  
  
She takes a quick glance at my current outfit -- a suit I think of as comfortable and easy for traveling -- and I realize that she probably thinks even this qualifies as "fancy." I suppose it even _is_ , around here. She's staffing the desk of the hotel wearing a threadbare blue blouse that drops off her shoulder, a pair of blue jeans, and scuffed brown flats. Her only jewelry is a wedding ring, and her unadorned blond hair is swept up into a simple bun.  
  
I spend the afternoon re-thinking my wardrobe. I do have one pair of pants -- they're black silk, and hang like a long skirt -- and a handful of muted-color tops. I decide to go shopping. A little more money spread around can't hurt.  
  
My first stop is the shoe store, where a friendly, round-faced man with a bushy mustache and a thick shock of floppy blond hair fits me for a new pair of boots. Unlike most of the district people I meet, he doesn't make an effort to talk me out of heels. ("Aw, no, if you've been wearing them for years, of course you're going to be used to them. Look at the way your foot arches up! I bet it's uncomfortable putting it down flat these days.") I "accidentally" pay him too much while mentioning that I've been friends with Haymitch for years, and he unobtrusively slips the extra into a little envelope. "Delly?" he calls, and a chubby little girl with a huge smile bounds in from the other room. "You know, I forgot a bit of business I did with Mr. Berryhill. Think you can swing this by?"  
  
It's the same at a dusty clothing store, where I pick up four pairs of jeans and some snug sweaters, and the owner abruptly remembers a debt he has to the cemetery groundskeeper. There's a coat shop as well, where I pick up a heavy, camel-colored overcoat with shiny black buttons, and the old man nearly weeps over "finally" being able to repay a few miners who helped him set up his inventory last spring. The next day, I discover that several of my skirts need to be shortened, and take them to the tailors. Their daughter was a tribute a couple of years after Haymitch won, and they are subdued and quiet. They've informally adopted a girl from the Community Home to help them, and she appears to stay there full time, though they take full advantage of her unofficial status to send her back to the home with a "payment" for the day. The innkeepers' daughter Sarey helps me get all of my wardrobe into the closet and dressers -- and chatters on about what people will want to see here, if they're going to show Twelve more than usual -- and I pay her for a days' work. She runs off immediately to "show" the money to a girlfriend of hers down on the Seam.  
  
I have an early supper with Haymitch at the restaurant in the inn -- it's plain food, but quite good -- and we take a walk together afterward, to compare notes. A few children are waiting along the side of the road. Haymitch says that they're waiting for their parents to come home from the mines.  
  
"No childcare?" I ask.  
  
He frowns. "No. They're just anxious to see their parents."  
  
"Oh." I shake my head. "I don't understand why the boys wouldn't take a tip the first day," I say. "Everyone's been taking the… other tips."  
  
"The first one was an actual _tip_ ," Haymitch says. "People around here see that as a handout, and they don't take handouts. The rest is getting around the tax man, once Eli Cartwright got word around that you were helping me with that. All's fair when it comes to taxes."  
  
"Well, it's not a _tax_ , per se…"  
  
"Sure it's not."  
  
We come to a bench not far from the bakery. The baker's boys are building a snowman with the shoemakers' daughter Delly, and Sarey from the inn. Haymitch watches them without saying anything.  
  
"The baker here is very good, if I recall," I prod him.  
  
"Danny? The best."  
  
"I thought I could hire him to cater the tour. Pastries, cakes, breads. Didn't you once get him recipes from all the districts?"  
  
"Yes, I did. Why?"  
  
"Well, he could make them. As a special Victory Tour kick-off. And it would be something interesting for the media to talk about."  
  
"I don't know if he still has them."  
  
I frown. "You used to be good friends. He was looking after you when I came on board."  
  
"And now you look after me. You're my new Danny. Though there are certain conversations he and I never needed to have."  
  
"Haymitch, you need a friend who's _here_." I wrinkle my nose. "And by the way, thanks a lot for that."  
  
"I figured you'd just love that comparison." He grins and shrugs. "And what about _you_? You're not dating, you haven't talked about any of your friends in the Capitol, and you spend half the year just on sponsors."  
  
"I'm not -- "  
  
"You're not… what? The one who needs to be fixed? The one who needs friends?" He sighs. "Maybe I'm a little worried about _you_ , too. Or is everything supposed to be about me? Because it shouldn’t be. You need other people to worry about. Starting with Euphemia Trinket."  
  
"I…"  
  
He shakes the whole thing off. "Don't get the wrong idea. I still spend time with Danny. I still do business with him, and we get along fine. I even watched the boys a few times when the bakery was busy. He's just got a whole life now. People have families, and… well, I guess it's the right way for it to be."  
  
"Then what's with the long face?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
I decide not to pursue it. "I had another idea," I say. "For the press."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Yeah. It wouldn't involve actors or people pretending to be Fannicks. People here don't seem to pretend all that much."  
  
"True enough."  
  
"So, Sarey Shannon was helping me with my clothes, and she said something about what people would want to see. Do you think people might go along with interviews about what they might like Finnick to see here? The best things in Twelve? It would take the attention away from the question of whether or not they actually like Finnick. And then they could film you actually showing him, if there's time. I think he has two days, which is what they usually give when there's a district tour, and really there's not much to tour here."  
  
"There's not much to _see_ here. It's a town. About nine thousand people, give or take. What exactly would a kid from Four want to see?"  
  
"Snow," I suggest. "He probably hasn't seen much snow. Maybe he could…" I gesture at the children playing by the bakery.  
  
"I tried that in Eight. The Gamemakers weren't happy."  
  
"Sarey thought he'd like to walk in the woods up at the park. I'm not sure where that is."  
  
"Top of the hill. It's just a bare spot with fallen logs."  
  
"And she says there are sometimes parties on the Seam, where people sing."  
  
"Glen's place. I'm surprised a merchant girl is allowed down there. I mean, Glen's all right -- he married a merchant girl -- but the neighbors barely tolerate his _wife_ , let alone..." He shakes his head, annoyed.  
  
"Haymitch, we have to fill airtime with _something_. Why don't you call Finnick and find out what he'd _like_ to see?"  
  
"No district-to-district calls."  
  
I grind my teeth. "You're not being helpful."  
  
The first carload of miners comes back from the mines, and children start jumping up to greet them. A little girl with two long black braids runs to her father, who picks her up and swings her around. They laugh out loud, like the world is a place full of unlimited happiness for them, and then the man starts to sing in a strong, beautiful voice.  
  
_Pretty Lady Liberty in robes so fine,_  
_Took a swim into town along the subway line…_  
  
It's an old song about the Catastrophes (this particular one about a great city sinking into the ocean) but it has a catchy beat and a little dance with fish sounds to accompany it. The little girl joins him, singing at the top of her lungs as they pass us, and shaking her little backside like a fish tail while she sings, "Glub-blubba-blubba, glub…"  
  
"That's him," Haymitch says. "The one with the singing parties."  
  
"I believe it. Don't you think people would like to hear him?"  
  
"I think there's such a thing as private lives," he says. "Leave him be. That's fun for his family and neighbors. Not everyone wants that on television."  
  
"Haymitch, we can't just have nothing when they show up. We have to have a show ready. It's not going to go away if you shoot down every idea."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
He nods. "I'm not the one to run ideas by here. I can't tell you the best of District Twelve, because everything that's good about it for me is gone. You come up with an idea. Tell me when to show up and where to stand and what to wear, and I'll do it. I'll even do it sober. But that's as much as I can give you."  
  
I suppose it's the best I'll get from him. He tells me that my best bet for getting money around is to keep up the shopping pretense. The apothecary has people who sell him herbs that he can overpay for. The grocers -- Babra's parents -- can distribute a lot by handing it out with the change, as long as it doesn't stay in the till long enough for the government to recognize it. An old man named Fisher has a hardware store, and is always ready to help out, if I can think of some reason to buy hardware. He'll deal with the miners. They don't like him and never did, but he used to be one of them, at least.  
  
And I'm to come up with whatever the entertainment is, but it's not to treat the people here as entertainment. He's very strict about that.  
  
I end up going to the mayor, who helps me find sites of local historical interest. Sarey is determined to show the park, and brings some of her friends along. They do not seem averse to the idea of showing Finnick Odair what children in District Twelve like to do (to my surprise, Haymitch doesn’t mind this -- he thinks that showing Finnick with children his age or younger will be helpful somehow, as long as the children are willing). Danny Mellark takes a huge order for the breads, and puts together a display of the cards that Haymitch got for him, though they seem to have been trimmed around the edges (he blames this on "grease spots"). He's also got a special cake, which he says is a local tradition, with layers made by different people. It's not exactly right, but he's gotten a recipe for a layer from a victor in each district (mailed to Haymitch), and that will be the centerpiece.  
  
Against Haymitch's expectations, a few Fannicks -- mostly schoolgirls -- do come out of the woodwork. Their parents aren't thrilled, but give permission for them to appear.  
  
By the time the crew transport arrives three days ahead of the tour to set up the stage and get Treeza and Chicory's families set up, we've got the show covered. I go around with cameras to show them collecting the extra money from the local families (some even manage a friendly smile), and the construction team builds out the stage.  
  
We are as ready as it's possible to be for a visit from Finnick Odair.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick arrives in District Twelve, and Effie's downtime takes her in a direction she never expected.

I go to Haymitch's place for mandatory viewing of the beginning of the Victory Tour. We're set up for filming outside, since the trip out here will take two days and they have to fill it with something, but for now, everything is about Four. They come to collect Finnick in the early afternoon, after he claims he spent the morning on the beach. The whole thing is set up to look like the camera crews just happened upon him at water's edge. I've been in the business long enough to see every bit of styling that's gone into the shot, but it's actually impressively subtle -- minimal make-up meant to catch the sparkling sunlight, heavy conditioning of his artfully tousled hair, a casual outfit with rolled up pants and an open-throated shirt. Someone who's never been near a prep team might think he just washed his face, though a little thought really ought to remind them that every other beach shot has shown him with a little sand on him, and a white shirt wouldn't casually look that good after spending the morning clamming. He offers to bring some fresh shellfish to Caesar, but Caesar "reminds" him that he's got a lot of ground to cover before getting to the Capitol.  
  
"District Twelve first!" Caesar says. "The mountains in the winter. It should be beautiful. There will be snow, as I understand it. Have you seen snow?"  
  
"Just on television. I can't wait. I was going to wear my sandals, but Mags said it would be cold." The camera pans down to his obviously new footwear, the designer's label very prominent.  
  
"How's Finnick-mania at home? Are the girls from Four all a-twitter?"  
  
"Well, it's nothing new for them," Finnick says. "They've always been a-twitter. I mean, I've never walked down a street without people fainting. It's old hat, really. Of course, now that everyone else is doing it, they think it's passé. So fickle."  
  
On the screen beside him, Mags rolls her eyes hugely, as does Haymitch, sitting beside me on the couch.  
  
The coverage shows the girls outside Victors' Village, waving wildly to the cameras. A few of them bemoan the fact that Finnick isn't in school with them anymore. No mention is made of the fact that no one volunteered to take his place, or that his district partner clearly disliked him.  
  
Once they have Finnick bundled off to the train and the coverage cuts back to Caesar's preview of the tour, Haymitch says, "Did he look okay to you?"  
  
"Fine," I tell him. "He's got Mags and the rest of the victors in Four, and his parents, and apparently a lot of fainting girls to take care of him if he needs someone."  
  
"A pointed reference?"  
  
I shrug. "You could at least put your phone back in. Then you could call if you needed me. Or anyone. You could call Merle Undersee. He thinks the world of you."  
  
"Why would I call Merle? His place is a five minute walk from here."  
  
"Which you never make, according to Kay. And Mrs. Breen says --"  
  
"District Twelve gossip, Effie?" He shakes his head and gives a long-suffering sigh. "You need a hobby. What's your talent, anyway?"  
  
I stick my tongue out at him. I've said the same thing to him a hundred times.  
  
A few minutes later, the production team says that Caesar wants Haymitch live to kick off the tour. Haymitch groans and goes outside. He smiles for the cameras and makes a lot of sarcastic jokes about his own looks -- mostly how Finnick can look forward to getting old and putting on a gut -- but manages to sound like Finnick's irascible old uncle who's just pretending not to be looking forward to a visit. Caesar has a live audience back in the Capitol, and they are lapping it up.  
  
When he's sober and feeling useful, Haymitch is actually very good with the cameras, albeit in his own distinct way. He did get one of the few memorable moments in the interviews in his year, and when I call people about sponsorships, they still remember his sarcastic comment about the intelligence of the other tributes. Most even laugh when they recall it. I decide to see if I can get him more interviews next year. As long as he's sober, it can't hurt.  
  
During the two days that the train is en route, we make the final preparations in the town square. I hire a band from the local bar -- they're not really good, but they're the best to be had, and they play local music. The lead singer, a boy from the high school, says he's written a ballad about _me_. It's quite terrible, but I don't have to resort to telling him so, since it refers to spreading the money around, and I can't very well have him sing that on national television.  
  
"Oh, it's a secret," he says wisely. "That's the title, then. The Secret Giver." He hands me a copy of the lyrics, with notes for the chords. I take it and smile.  
  
District Twelve's few Fannicks show up at the train station for Finnick's arrival. The site producer, Spurius Gimcrack, opts to put them close together, figuring that he can make twenty-odd squealing high school girls look like a crowd, as long as he doesn't widen the shot enough to show the empty platform beyond them.  
  
"After he gets off the train, he'll go into a car," Spurius says. "Break through the line of Peacekeepers -- you guys don't mind, right? -- and jump on the car. Let the Peacekeepers pull you off. Can you do that?"  
  
The girls discuss this among themselves, then a pretty fifteen year old with bright grey eyes and curly black hair says, "Do you think we could try to catch him as he goes to the car? I could give him a kiss."  
  
"Well, don't manhandle him _too_ much," Spurius tells her. "But if he doesn't object, sure. Let him take the lead."  
  
I watch the filming from the control tent. It comes off well enough. The curly-haired girl launches herself at Finnick as he's led to the car, and he makes a show of posing with her (though there's no way she'd be able to get a picture to keep), then a few others, before the Peacekeepers ostentatiously tell him that there's no time for flirting and bundle him into the car. The girls give chase, then they cut to a pre-recorded segment about Twelve and the Games, focusing on Haymitch and Duronda -- both, according to the commentator, "colorful characters." At some point, they even scare up Duronda's daughter, a middle-aged woman who couldn't look less like her neighbors if she tried. She has mousy brown hair and hazel eyes, and a kind of unpleasant aspect to her face that I can't put my finger on. She says that she hadn't talked to her mother in years. I'm sure in the districts that this seems scandalous, but no one in the Capitol would take it amiss. I haven't spoken to either of my parents for over a decade, and there's no great drama to it. She hasn't ever spoken to Haymitch.  
  
This bit of pantomime is more than enough to cover the short trip Finnick takes from the train station to the Justice Building. When we cut back to the live shot, the crew has Finnick set up for his speech, which is subdued and very proper. He follows the cues to look at the pictures of Treeza and Chicory, and claims that he wanted to join Chicory's alliance because of great admiration for him. As usual in Victory Tour speeches, no mention is made of the fact the admiration ended with a trident to the neck. He does smile and say that he likes the weather here, and thanks his stylist for the warm clothes.  
  
After the speech is over, he's hurried back inside for another costume change. Haymitch and Mags are chatting amiably in a small sitting room near the kitchen (the rooms the tributes say goodbye in are pointedly open, but Haymitch will never use them, and I guess I won't, either). We weren't sure that he'd be invited -- the Gamemakers go back and forth on the issue -- but in the end, they can't resist the lure of having Finnick seen with as many other victors as they can squeeze in, on the hopes that his popularity will rub off and lead to more programming opportunities. I end up talking to the District Four escort, Mariana Torrance, for most of the wait. She seems nice enough. She confides that she has no idea what to do with her popular young charge, who is headstrong and unpredictable. I tell her to let him do what he needs to, and just keep him out of trouble. After that, we can't think of anything to say to one another. We promise to have coffee back home.   
  
The dinner is lovely. I've gotten used to the plain dishes they serve at the hotel, and I can see how much they're fancied up for the tour, though other people seem unimpressed. No one is unimpressed by the baked goods. Dannel Mellark has outdone himself. His wife actually serves from the pastry table, and his oldest boy, Jonadab, steers the pastry cart around. After dinner, we clear the floor and the band sets up. Everyone dances. I even have a dance with Haymitch, though we cut it off early when we notice that we're a little too close. I move on and dance with Merle Undersee, and Haymitch dances with Mags.  
  
I saw to it that there is no bar in the room, which I hear a few people grumbling about, but I don't care. I won't have Haymitch embarrassing himself, and even more, I won't participate in Finnick picking up the same habits. By the end of the evening, the two of them are already thick as thieves anyway, sitting back at a corner table and playing cards while Mags looks on.  
  
It's gone off without a hitch. Tomorrow, we have an entire day planned with the children willing to show him around. Finnick looks genuinely pleased to learn this. Haymitch tells him there's nothing special to see.  
  
I go back to the inn, satisfied that no one is going to get into trouble, and I relax. There's a television in my room, with recaps from the evening. It looks smart and sophisticated, and the visitors seem happy to be here. The crowd doesn't seem too sullen. The banquet hall looks much more sumptuous than it really is. The shots they catch of Haymitch are flattering for once, and he's actually smiling and laughing with Mags and Finnick.  
  
It should be fine, but I'm restless. I'm still going through tomorrow's schedule, even though I have next to nothing to do with it. I wonder if Mr. Flickerman will think I did well. More pragmatically, I wonder if anyone is going to notice that, in terms of District Twelve's economy, a lot of money appears to have come out of nowhere at all, and I worry that they'll suddenly be expected to do this every year. I'm not destitute -- my job pays well -- but I don't think I can afford _this_ much of an outlay again for a while.  
  
At any rate, though I'm washed up and in my pajamas, with a warmed scarf around my head, I can't even think about going to sleep. I try to read a little bit of a romance I started a few months ago (the plucky heroine, a girl from the wrong side of the Capitol, has met a charming young man from the Grove, heir of two wealthy families, who has been working in disguise as a common laborer), but it doesn't hold my attention. I go to the window. The people of District Twelve are inside for the night, and most of the crew is back on the train, though a few are dismantling the stage. There's a light snow falling, making haloes around the lights, softening the branches of the trees. It's actually lovely, in its way, no matter what Haymitch thinks.  
  
When I first see the small figure come out of the shadows, I don't really recognize him. Just a kid in an oversized winter coat, wandering along the edge of the square, unnoticed.  
  
It's not until I realize that he's coming from the direction of the railroad platform that I understand that it's Finnick.  
  
I grab my own coat and put on some boots, and head out after him.  
  
It takes a minute to find him. It's a bit darker than it looks from my window. But I see a flash of movement at the corner, and a moment later, a small dot of light appears in the snow.  
  
I follow. He shouldn't be out, and I worry that if I call to him, other people will hear. And I worry that he'll wander into the wrong part of District Twelve and see the ugly faces that Haymitch talks about. I have a horrible idea that he means to see Chicory's parents and try to apologize to them, and I don't think that would go over at all well.  
  
Finnick goes up a side street and I follow the bobbing of his flashlight into a vast, dark area at the top of the hill. There is a single light in the snow, and it seems to be what Finnick is making for. I catch up with him five minutes later. He's standing in the shadow of a large stone monument, engraved with names. I realize with a start that we are in the cemetery. This is the tribute memorial. The moon is peeking out just enough for me to see other stones strewn around, and wooden planks with words burned into them, driven into the ground.  
  
"I'm not doing anything wrong," Finnick says quietly. "Please let me finish my business before you take me back to the train."  
  
"I wasn't going to take you back," I say.  
  
He turns. "I thought you were a Peacekeeper."  
  
"They'd have grabbed you in the square."  
  
"Oh, right."  
  
"I just wanted to make sure you didn't end up somewhere you shouldn't."  
  
He smiles. "Haymitch already warned me. I just came to pay my respects to Chicory. And the others. Mags says that the other districts are too big, and cemeteries are too far away."  
  
I frown. "Your respects?"  
  
"Well… Tiggy says I should. That whenever I can, I should. So I don't forget, in all this."  
  
"Tiggy?"  
  
"He's just a guy in District Four. If you do something bad, you tell him about it. And he helps figure out ways to make it as right as you can."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Could I have a moment?" he asks. He pulls a necklace out from under his coat. It's a knotted string, not unlike Haymitch's district token, though there are more knots, and it seems to have seashells at regular intervals. He nervously ties and re-ties knots in an empty section at the bottom.  
  
I nod. "I'll go over there," I say, pointing vaguely at another, smaller stone monument. I am very conscious of the fact that I am standing on top of the bones of District Twelve's dead. I take a few steps away. Finnick kneels in front of the stone, and starts mumbling quietly, fretting at the knots on his necklace.  
  
I go to the nearest stone monument, far enough away not to hear, but close enough not to lose track of Finnick. I'm not sure why this seems important. When I get close I see that the stone has a name on it, and dates.  
  
The name is INDIGO HARDY ABERNATHY.  
  
I blink. This is a carefully crafted piece of sculpture, made from marble most likely quarried in District Two. It had to have been shipped in, and only Haymitch could afford it. He gave her his name.  
  
I trace it. I picture her body -- down to bones now, or dust -- in the dirt below me. How can they stand this? How can they sit here in their pretty town square, with the bones of their families staring down from the hill?  
  
Finnick comes over a few minutes later. "Relative of Haymitch's?" he asks.  
  
"His girl," I say. I shudder. "Let's get out of here. I'm not sure I can get back without the light."  
  
Finnick leads me back into town. We've gone utterly unnoticed, thankfully. He goes back to the train.  
  
The next day, he comes to the inn, where Sarey takes the lead in showing him up to the park. A few local children join them there, and it's filmed to look like a spontaneous gathering, during which they sit on the logs and tell each other ghost stories. Finnick seems to enjoy it, and Sarey comes back to the inn, sounding surprised when she says, "He's actually nice!"  
  
The mayor takes him around to various historical sites, and he's even allowed to see the mines, under extremely controlled circumstances. It all looks very good.   
  
The Victory Tour train leaves that evening, headed for District Eleven. I hope Chaff and Seeder have been able to sneak money around. It's got to be harder in an area that big.  
  
My own train won't leave for another day. I go to see Haymitch and ask him to teach me how to fight with a knife. He tells me I'm not physically strong enough. I ask about getting away from someone who's pinned me or is holding me down somehow, and he starts to teach me, but we both realize _very_ quickly that it's not the best idea we've ever had. He promises to ask Caesar to get self-defense classes for the escorts. Then he pours himself a drink and asks me if I want one.  
  
"I don't think you should start," I say.  
  
"It's over, Effie. I’m done with the assignment. Now, I'm going to have a drink."  
  
I sigh and have one drink with him. I stop there. He keeps going.  
  
I leave late in the afternoon, meaning to go straight back to the inn. Instead, I find my feet following Finnick's path from last night, up the side street, up the hill to the cemetery. In the gray winter daylight, it seems flat and unreal. The soft blanket of snow, which is still falling, mutes the sounds.  
  
I visit the tribute memorial first. Sassafras Lake, my first assignment as a hairdresser. She had beautiful black hair, with classical ringlets that only needed to be shined up a little bit. She was scared. She wanted to talk, but couldn't think of anything, so we talked about television shows. She said her brothers called her Sassy. Her picture is embossed on the monument, in the cascading curls I built up for her forever fixed in stone. Babra. Trill. I should have given him his kiss while he was alive. I'm glad the memorial only shows their pictures from the shoulders up. Hecky and Mercy are next, their big eyes staring out from their thin faces. I try to go on, but I can't.  
  
The names. The names I pulled.  
  
I turn and stumble up the hill to Indigo's stone. Indigo Abernathy. That isn't the sign of a whimsical childhood love.  
  
I touch her name again, and draw my hand back. She is under my feet. A real girl, who once lived, who loved Haymitch, who gave him the knotted string that sits in a locked jewelry box in my apartment. What would she say to me, to this woman who's touched Haymitch, who had to leave before things went any further than a touch just today?  
  
I hear my own breath, ragged and uneven. I don't know what to do, what I'm supposed to say. I wish I'd listened in on Finnick. What do you say to moldering bones?  
  
"Is there someone listening?" I ask. "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. What do you do?"  
  
"I usually just talk," someone says.  
  
I nearly jump out of my skin. "Mr. Mellark!"  
  
"Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. You're visiting Digger? Haymitch almost never does."  
  
"I can see why. This is macabre! How do you… why do you…?"  
  
"I just come to talk sometimes," he says. "My parents are over there." He points to a little wooden structure. "Haymitch helped me build the grave house. To keep the animals away. I… you want to meet them?"  
  
I don't. I _distinctly_ don't. But it seems rude to say so. I let him lead me over. There's no stone here inside the grave house, just a wooden plank, but it's been painted beautifully, with the images of a plain man and woman, standing side by side in the shade of a tree.  
  
"They had a strange marriage," he says. "And I'm something of an expert on that now." He smiles ruefully. "They loved each other, though. And me. I sometimes just come out here and tell them about my boys. How the bakery's doing. That kind of thing."  
  
"Do you believe they hear?"  
  
"No idea. It just feels good to talk to them."  
  
"I don't talk to my parents, and they live five minutes from me."  
  
"Is that a Capitol thing?"  
  
"It's just… the way it is."  
  
He shakes his head. "Why did you want to see Digger?"  
  
"I didn't come for that. I wanted to see the tributes. I don't know what I meant to say to them, either. I just couldn't look any more."  
  
"Hurts to remember their names?"  
  
I straighten up, some of my fear and confusion wiped away by anger. "I've never forgotten a single one of their names."  
  
He looks at me, then nods. "I believe you. Haymitch says you're decent. A good person. Actually, if I let him talk long enough when he's drunk, you're more or less an angel who deigns to help him out, even though he doesn't deserve you."  
  
"Yeah, right."  
  
"Is there something going on that he hasn't told me about?"  
  
"No." I sigh. "He needs a friend. It didn't do him any good when you stopped being his friend."  
  
"When I… _what?_ " He grinds his teeth. "I'm Haymitch's friend. I'm not his drinking buddy, but as long as we stay sober, we're… He _said_ that?"  
  
I nod.  
  
He grumbles under his breath, then says, "Think he'd take the hint if I had Eli Cartwright make him a new pair of hiking boots, so he can make it all the way here from the wilds of Victors' Village?"  
  
"Probably not," I admit.  
  
"I'll see what I can do. He's a stubborn cuss."  
  
We don't say anything more. I let my eyes wander back to Indigo's stone. "What would I say to her? I mean, what would she be interested in?"  
  
"She'd probably sympathize about Haymitch. And she'd like to know about the weather. And what it's like in the Capitol. She always wondered about things outside District Twelve." He lays down a small drawing on his parents' grave, then nods further up the hill. "Come on. Let me introduce you to the rest."  
  
He leads me to another grave house under the spreading branches of an elm tree. Inside is a marble monument to Basil, Rhona, and Lacklen Abernathy. The grave house itself is built solidly, with a heavy roof that seems to keep all of the elements off the graves. Words have been carved into the rail carefully. Beloved. Care. Dear. To my surprise, quell and tribute are there. Words snake around the outside senselessly in a strange free association. I touch the word "quell."  
  
"He loves words," Dannel says. "He and his daddy used to read an old dictionary. Digger would sometimes get him to read out meanings for fun, too. In case you didn't think he was crazy enough."  
  
I run my hands over the words. Legend. Clever. Good. Beauty. "He loved them."  
  
"Of course he loved them. They were his family." He looks at me. "You've never even seen a cemetery, have you?"  
  
"We cremate our dead and set them free into the wind."  
  
"And forget about them."  
  
"We… we don't _dwell_. No one makes us look."  
  
"Does anything in the Capitol last?"  
  
"There's no such thing as permanent," I say. It's a sentiment we learned early in Capitol dreams: Change is the state of the universe. Don't get attached. "Only the Capitol is forever."   
  
The silent graves seem to laugh at this.  
  
"Sounds stressful," Dannel says. "And kind of terrifying." He waits a minute, then adds, "If you want to visit your tributes, I'll stay with you."  
  
I nod. We go back to the monument. I still don't know what to say.  
  
I toss and turn for a long time that night, and oversleep so badly that I've barely had time to put my makeup on before I have to run to the train. I am alone in the car all the way home, and I leave the television on to keep me company. Miss Meadowbrook's new show is on, running a marathon when the Victory Tour coverage is off. She plays a foster mother whose kids come and go (each week, she has a different group, with a new set of problems). She sends them out into the world. I doubt I could hold onto their names for more than a few episodes at a time.  
  
I'm still feeling out of sorts when I get back to the Capitol and settle into my apartment. I think about the grave houses, and the words running in their odd chain. I try to remember anything I did with either of my parents, other than the usual learning to walk and talk, and getting in trouble over school from time to time.  
  
Finally, I pick up the phone. I have to look up my mother's number, but it's not hard to find. She's surprised to hear from me. I find that I have no more idea of what I mean to say to her than I did of what to say to the tributes. I wish her well, and she wishes me well. It's a pleasant enough conversation.  
  
I call my father next. He tells me that I'm too old to be calling him "Daddy," and reminds me that, since we're both adults, I should call him Phronos, like the rest of his friends do. His second marriage contract expired several years ago, and his son is now studying music at the university. He plays strings. "He was good when he lived here," Daddy says. "I should see him in the orchestra someday."  
  
"Maybe I should, too. He is my half-brother."  
  
"Well, yes, I suppose so." He sighs. "I'm thinking of taking another marriage. I do enjoy being a father. I always miss it when I finish."  
  
"You should do it," I encourage him. "I'm sure a new one will enjoy you."  
  
He thanks me.  
  
We hang up.  
  
I sit alone in my apartment, thinking about snow, and a light bobbing in the darkness, and bones beneath the dirt.  
  
I don't know why I called them, anyway.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Effie has an emotional crisis, she turns to her old friends in Capitol Dreams.

About a week after I talk to my father, I go to see my half-brother Ninian in concert. He plays many instruments, according to the program, but I go to see him play the piano. He's a nice looking boy, and his biography says that he is seeing the young woman who turns pages for him. The biography notes that he is the half-brother of District Twelve Games escort and fashion leader Euphemia Trinket. We meet after the show. It's awkward. We promise to have lunch sometime.   
  
I go out to dinner alone, and suddenly start crying into my soup. I can't seem to stop. No one makes a fuss, but the waiters do lead me to a quiet room. I pick up the phone, thinking vaguely of calling Haymitch. I've picked up after him when he's weepy. Maybe he could help me. But his phone is still out of the wall.  
  
Instead, I call Miss Meadowbrook at Capitol Dreams. She drives over at roughly the speed of light and brings me back to her big house. She gives me water and wraps me up in a fluffy quilt, and doesn't make me talk.  
  
"You'll tell me what's going on when you're ready to," she says. "I'll look after you in the meantime."  
  
She finally gives me hot chocolate. I think it has something in it, because a sense of calm starts to go through me.  
  
I tell her what I've been doing.  
  
She sighs heavily. "Oh, Euphemia. I was afraid of this. You've gotten drawn into all of this business, haven't you?"  
  
I nod.  
  
"Is it Haymitch?"  
  
"Yes. And no. Other things, too. The tributes die. Every year. They die."  
  
She hugs me and doesn't try to talk me out of this feeling. She lets me stay the night. In the morning, she invites her personal doctor to examine me. He tells me it's perfectly natural to feel down sometimes. Chemicals in the brain sometimes get imbalanced. He prescribes some little yellow pills called Pherolen, like the ones Miss Meadowbrook gave me during Trill and Babra's Games -- the ones Haymitch told me not to take on duty.  
  
"You're not on duty for another six months," Miss Meadowbrook says. "And honestly, dear as Haymitch is, he has no right to tell you not to feel better. No legal right, and, given his own behavior, no moral right. You know that, don't you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
She sighs and gives me a hug. "You stay here with me as long as you need to, Euphemia. I'll be glad of the company."  
  
I end up staying for two months. Miss Meadowbrook insists that I call her Emiliana ("or even Mimi, if you like!") Her current boyfriend -- a handsome young sculptor named Tarquinius -- takes me back to my place for an hour to pack my things, but other than that, I don't go back. I give Caesar Flickerman Mimi's number.  
  
There are parties every few days. Some are loud and full of young people dancing. Some are sophisticated and full of older people sipping wine. Mimi seems to be equally at home in either. I'm used to both from sponsor meet-and-greets, and I use them to line up new friends to sponsor Twelve. Mimi tells me to take a night off sometime.  
  
When the Victory Tour reaches the Capitol, I don't get an invitation to the party. Mimi does, and she invites me as her plus-one. Finnick sees me and comes across the room to talk -- he says it's good to see a familiar face -- but he seems confused, and says that I'm "different" in the Capitol. He's been enjoying the tour, though, and wants to see Panem again as soon as he can. He loves the trees in Seven and Twelve, and tried ice skating in the Victors' Village in Eight. ("My ankles _still_ hurt!" he tells me excitedly. "I can't wait to try it again!")  
  
The pills really start to take effect after a couple of weeks. I'm not giddy or excited about things, but the strange, low mood is gone. Colors seem brighter. I feel vaguely foolish for worrying about ridiculous things. I meet my brother Ninian for lunch, but I can't remember why it seemed so important. We joke a little bit about our father, and the way he would carry us around and tuck us in at night.  
  
"He always used to sing," Ninian says. "Did he sing to you?"  
  
"Lullabies."  
  
"Yeah. Those. He always seemed to be having so much fun."  
  
We agree that he should have another child. He's good at the job. Ninian asks me if I have children. I tell him that I want to, eventually, but I don't think I can while I'm working for the Games. He doesn't understand, and I find that I can't explain myself.  
  
We don't make plans for another lunch, but I'm glad to know him. He promises to offer what he can for District Twelve next year. I promise to go to more concerts. I don't think either one of us believes the other, but that's all right. It's just manners.  
  
Four-vor finally starts to fade as the snow on the mountains begins to recede. Finnick is still wildly popular, but there's a new band that's been catching the eyes of the same girls, and his face isn't nearly as ubiquitous. One of the comedy shows actually gets away with doing a mild lampoon of the whole episode, in which a young woman playing Finnick tries desperately to revive the fad.  
  
Tarquinius introduces me to a friend of his, a club owner named Gallus. He's bright and dryly droll, and he reminds me of Haymitch, except without the hang-ups. We date for a few weeks, and he helps me move back home, now that I'm feeling better. He stays for a few days, but it doesn’t really click. He no longer reminds me of Haymitch. He says I'm not comfortable with my own body, let alone his. He knows a man who gives lessons, if I want to take them. I tell him that I'll think about it. He tells me to give him a call if I do.  
  
Mimi rolls her eyes hugely at this. "Any man who doesn't want what you feel comfortable offering him isn't worth your time."   
  
She invites me to more upscale parties, and I meet a lot of nice older men, but nothing ever seems to come together for me. The Games and the sponsor circuit are all I really know, and I'm lost when they start talking about political maneuvering and interest rates and land ownership in the out-districts. The only one who interests me -- and it's not in a romantic way -- is one who is trying to get permission to settle an island south of the main continent, where he can grow sugar cane. "A new District Thirteen, if you like," he says. "Or maybe they'd want to avoid the bad luck, and call it District Fourteen."  
  
"Would people there be in the Games?" I ask. "They wouldn't have participated in the rebellion."  
  
He frowns. "It's an interesting question, though I assume the majority of the population would come from the existing districts, so they would have the same history to atone for." He considers this. "I'd probably have to pay for extra Peacekeepers, that far away. It would be hard to keep track of them down there."  
  
"The settlers wouldn't be from the Capitol, then?"  
  
He laughs. "Do _you_ want to cut sugar cane in the tropical heat?"  
  
I lose interest, but keep talking to him for a few minutes anyway. I dream that night that I am in District Fourteen, with no wig on my head, wearing blue jeans and a light cotton shirt, breaking my back in the sun cutting some kind of plant. I am tired and I hurt and I'm hot. But Haymitch is working in the same row with me, and I feel like we have a life here. He says, "No one can see us so far away." Then children run out into the field, and a little girl like the one I saw in Twelve rushes up to Haymitch, and he picks her up and swings her around, and they laugh like happiness is an unlimited thing. Then we are old -- wrinkled and white-haired and tired and sick, but the sun is warm above us on the beach, and people are crowded around us, and it seems all right.  
  
I wake up feeling confused and elated and oddly frightened, and I take a double-dose of my pills. They even out my mood. I make an appointment with Mimi's doctor, and I tell him about my dream.  
  
"I wouldn't worry about it," he says. "It's perfectly normal. A lot of people sometimes fantasize about a simpler life than we have here. You know it's just a fantasy, though."  
  
"Yes. People starve in the districts. And it's awful work. Mining _killed_ both of Haymitch's parents. Well, his mom died in an accident, but she was already dying from the mines. People are old at sixty there. And no one does anything about it. I talked to an executive once, and he said it was too expensive to fix the problems."  
  
"You're projecting, Euphemia. You're here to talk about your problems, not about politics."  
  
"Oh. Right."  
  
"So tell me what it was in this dream that frightened you enough to come in this morning."  
  
"I don't know." I look out the window. "It was… well, it was that I was _happy_. And that doesn't make sense. It didn't look like we had anything at all. I don't really think I'd be happier being poor, or that everyone in Twelve is happy because of hard work --"  
  
"Well, there are people who are fulfilled by manual labor. That's why the districts were built, after all."  
  
I don't think this is right, but it doesn't seem like an argument worth having with a doctor. "I'm not like that," I say. "I like having my things."  
  
"Of course." He doodles on a notepad for a minute, then says, "I think you just want things to be simpler."  
  
"I don't think life with Haymitch would ever be _simple_ , no matter where we were. He doesn't like simple. Mimi says he was too much drama for her, and she's an actress!"  
  
"Exactly." He grimaces, obviously preparing to say something I won't like. "Maybe you should simplify your life a bit. This boss of yours seems to complicate things. You clearly have inappropriate feelings for him, and you know they can't lead anywhere. Have you thought about transferring, so you could break away a bit? Surely, you have enough experience now. I don't even follow the Games, and I've heard of you! Perhaps a district where there's more than one victor, where they won't be leaning on you quite as hard as Haymitch Abernathy seems to."  
  
Everyone I talk to seems to think this is a good idea. I can't argue with the fact that I've gotten much more drawn into Haymitch's life than most of the other escorts are drawn into their victors'. We're supposed to be a support system for the Games and a help to the tributes, not an emotional crutch for the mentors. Justina Lennard, who was one of Blight's throw-away escorts before she was transferred to Ten, tells me that everyone has been saying I should transfer. ("But not to my district," she says, grinning. "I like the wide-open spaces.") At the very least, I should spend more time with the other escorts and Games workers, if I'm not comfortable outside the community.  
  
I put in for a transfer. Caesar Flickerman grills me about Haymitch's behavior, which I assure him has been blameless. "I've just gotten too involved," I say.  
  
"Involved?"  
  
"Not like _that_. I was just getting confused."  
  
Nothing is open this year. He will keep an eye out, and keep me in mind. I've certainly earned my stripes. If I hear of an opening that I want, I'm to ask about it.  
  
The rest of the spring, I spend making an effort to spend time with the rest of the Games staff, as well as Mimi's friends. At first, I gravitate to our old stylist, Philippa, but she's busy with her pre-fall line. I spend some time with the other escorts, going to clubs, though it's never really been my scene. The doctor increases my dosage of Pherolen, and I start actually feeling good, for the first time in years. I only sleep five hours or so a night, but I have a lot of energy, anyway. I still find my mind wandering to Haymitch, but I force it away, and concentrate on my real life, my life away from the Games. I have a few boyfriends, and I try a lot of the new fashions. I get photographed quite a lot. The news shows speculate that I'm trying to get a transfer, and one even gets a shot of my application.  
  
When I get to Twelve for the Reaping, I find Haymitch sober at the platform again. He is also cleaned up and looking contrite. If he had a hat, it would be in his hands.  
  
"I called Caesar from Merle's place," he says. "I… is there anything I can do better? Look, I cleaned up. I'm going crazy for a drink, but I'm not having one. See? Does that help?"  
  
I squeeze his hand. "Haymitch, you can drink on your own if you want to. I just… I was feeling down. It's not anything you did. It's time for a change. That's all."  
  
He frowns at me. "Are you okay, Effie?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"What are you taking?"  
  
"Something prescribed by a doctor, in the recommended dose, to even out my mood. And I already told my doctor that I won't be taking it during the Games, because I promised."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Pherolen. And go ahead, look it up if it makes you feel better. You'll find it's very common, and totally harmless."  
  
He looks at me strangely, then moves his head in, pressing his lips against mine.  
  
I pull away. "Haymitch, you said no. You said it's time to move on. And I'm already made up for the cameras!" I roll my eyes at him and smile.  
  
He closes his eyes, then opens them again very slowly. He nods. "All right, Effie."  
  
The production crew brings us into town, where they have everything set up and ready. It's a beautiful day, and the square is lush with greenery. Haymitch is the only dark note here. He is moving along like he's in mourning already. "Really," I tell him, "you have to put on a good face here. It's national mandatory viewing."  
  
"I'll put on a good face when they turn the cameras on."  
  
I get off the camera cart and put my hands on my hips. "What _is_ it, Haymitch?"  
  
"I'm sober and you're high as a kite. What's wrong with this picture?"  
  
"I'm… _what_?" I shake my head. "Really, Haymitch. I just didn't start mourning ahead of time this year."  
  
"Are you going to mourn at all, or does your medicine make it go away?"  
  
"No one's dead yet."  
  
"What about Trill? And Babra? How about Ronka -- the one who liked all of your silly wigs? Or Nasseh? Chicory? Mercy?"  
  
I frown. There's something fluttery and uncomfortable in my stomach. "Stop it, Haymitch. I cared about them. I'll care about the new ones. But I _can't_ spend my life like you do. You shouldn't spend your life like you do. Maybe you should try some medication, too."  
  
"I generally self-medicate," he says.  
  
Before we can get any further into this conversation, the site producer pulls us up onto the stage. He sits Haymitch down by the mayor and sets me up out front. We have sound tests to do.  
  
I call Rabbie Armstrong and Dandelion Bruce up to the stage -- both Seam children, both fifteen. Neither looks strong, but looks can be deceiving. Maybe one of them will come home this year. Dandy, at least, is angry and willing to fight. Rabbie looks like he's been beaten up in school a lot and is resigned to one last beating.  
  
Still, things change on a dime in the arena. Of my first two tributes, I never would have guessed that weepy Babra would be the one who'd really make a go of it.  
  
On the train, we watch the other reapings. There's a pair of young kids from Eleven, and a skinny, pimply boy from Ten who stick out. In Four, it looks like they've called Finnick in to mentor, and he and Mags have two eighteen year old tributes, Rowlin Mucky and Fee Guzman. Beetee and Wiress have the usual pair of frightened District Three kids. District Two produces an unattractive girl who scowls at the camera, and a boy who would seem quite lovely in any year other than the one after Finnick's. The Gamemakers make an effort to start "Philo-mania" around him (some going so far as "Philophilia"), but it doesn’t look from the coverage like anyone's biting.  
  
Rabbie and Dandy have no interest in learning the kind of etiquette they'll need in the Capitol if they're going to get sponsors. My medication is starting to wear off, and when Dandy tells me to put the proper fork in an uncomfortable sounding place, I have to fight not to cry. But I promised Haymitch not to take the pills during the Games, so I'll have to deal with it.  
  
He tries to make her apologize to me. She is not interested.  
  
The train has a malfunction at the Rotation (or rather, the track does). District Six workers are running around in a panic, and I see Peacekeepers knock a man down to the track and hit him with the butt of a gun, which doesn’t seem like a productive approach. The shades on the train windows go down abruptly. Outside, something crashes, and I hear several sharp impact sounds, like rocks thrown against a metal wall. Haymitch shoos the children back to their cars. He looks spooked.  
  
We barely make the Capitol in time for the parade. I take care of their hair on the train, though there's no equipment to do anything special with it. Therinus sends a message to get them into blue jeans and tee shirts, and as soon as we rush into the Re-make Center, he throws coal dust all over them. They look grimy and tired, and more like real District Twelve miners than anyone we've sent down before, but Therinus is utterly distraught. He'd planned an entire milieu, where they were to be dressed as mining machines. He's still holding the drill hat meant for Rabbie, looking at it despondently, when the chariot pulls out onto the street.  
  
We're apparently not the only train held up -- there were malfunctions for at least three other districts, judging by the haphazard prep work. One of the delayed groups was District Six itself, which usually gets here first. The Gamemakers must be up in arms. While the children are getting cleaned up, Plutarch Heavensbee calls Haymitch in for a meeting, and when he gets back (halfway through supper), he looks grim and serious.  
  
I wait for Dandy and Rabbie to go to bed, then say, "What was that about? Was it the trains? They must know you couldn't control it."  
  
He shakes his head tensely.  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"It was… you know Gamemakers. They get nervous when anything doesn't go according to plan. Has there been anything on the news about what made the trains stop?"  
  
"Just a quick item about why the costumes weren't very good. Something about a malfunction in the track switch."  
  
"Was there footage?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Of course not." He takes a deep breath. "I don't want you to go, Effie."  
  
"There's nothing open. I can't transfer any time soon, so you don't have to worry about it."  
  
"But if you need a recommendation, I'll always --"  
  
"I'll ask if something comes up."  
  
"If it was something I said --"  
  
"It wasn't."  
  
We don't have anything else to say. We watch the parade recaps again, then he goes to bed, and I go home.  
  
While the children are in training the next morning, I work on getting the station set up. Haymitch is helping Finnick learn to use the phones, since Mags is in sponsor meetings. Finnick looks exceptionally nervous, and Haymitch is trying to get him calmed down. Plutarch Heavensbee passes by and says something to them. Haymitch looks my way, then narrows his eyes at Mr. Heavensbee and says something I can't hear. Finnick looks at him curiously.  
  
I can't think of anything else at our table that needs arranging, so I go over to join them. Haymitch is flipping through Finnick's long list of sponsors with a stunned expression on his face. "Allies?" he suggests.  
  
Finnick laughs. He's a little taller than he was last year, and his shoulders have spread a bit, but he's still the boy that made the Capitol crazy. "I'm for it, but talking Rowlin into it might be hard. He seems to have a problem with fifteen-year-olds."  
  
"Giving you a little grief?"  
  
"Were your tributes ever older than you?"  
  
"No," Haymitch says. "Sheer luck, but no. Well, Elmer by a couple of months, I guess, but he was really exactly my age. Some of the early ones knew me in school. I wasn't much of an authority figure."  
  
"As opposed to now?"  
  
"I'm a _paragon_ of authority now. Right, Effie?" He smiles at me tentatively.   
  
"Your tributes respect you."  
  
"Well, Rowlin doesn't respect me," Finnick says. "He doesn't listen to a word I say. Mags scolded him on the train. Fee said he should be glad, but when he offered to swap mentors, she laughed." He takes the sponsor list. "Should I just start at the top and make my way down?"  
  
"You'll be here until you're seventy if you do that." Haymitch takes the list back and lays it out on the table. "Besides, I can already see a few that you'd do pretty well to steer clear of. Not all of them are nice. Effie, take a look. Do you know any of these that would be good to start with?"  
  
Technically, we're not supposed to help anyone who doesn't have an official alliance with us, but I've been around long enough to know that there's not a single victor who doesn't help anyone who asks. Even Brutus from Two has been known to grudgingly lend a hand from time to time.  
  
Once we get Finnick settled on a safe enough looking list of sponsors to start calling, Haymitch asks me if I'd like to get lunch. We go to a decent restaurant not far from Games Headquarters, and he treats me to whatever I want.  
  
I expect him to start talking about my transfer application again, maybe ask me to withdraw it, but he doesn't. Instead, he tells me that Dannel Mellark made a pointed visit to him, and seems to be under the crazy impression that he needs a local friend. He asks how things have been in the Capitol. He even says that he noticed I was staying with Mimi for a while, and asks after her.  
  
By the time they bring out dessert, he looks like he's in excruciating pain. I laugh. "Haymitch, I understand. Okay? We're still friends. You don't have to try any more small talk."  
  
"Oh, good." He rubs his head. "Plutarch says you've been back at Capitol Dreams. He's worried that… well, that you'll end up wanting to work for them instead of us. He just left them, and he says the parties can take up a lot of time."  
  
"Can I tell you a secret?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"I'm bored out of my socks at those parties. I can't imagine making a whole life out of them. I only go to find new sponsors." I smile. "I even met one who wants to sponsor District _Fourteen_."  
  
"Oh, I've met him. Is he still on about gold in South America?"  
  
"Sugar cane on an island."  
  
"What's next? An ice farming district in Antarctica?"  
  
"In case you _really_ want to get away from it all."  
  
"Where would you start a new district?"  
  
"How about one by the bridge over the Mississippi?"  
  
"What would they build?"  
  
"No idea. More bridges, maybe? What about you?"  
  
"Hmm." He thinks about it. "Scotland. My family came from there about a thousand years ago. Kind of the old home place."  
  
"And what would you build there?"  
  
"Bagpipes. We don't have any districts devoted to bagpipes."  
  
"What are they?"  
  
"Some kind of instrument. I've read about them." He laughs and bites his lip, and I don't want a transfer. I never want a transfer. He reaches across and takes my hand. "Effie, I -- "  
  
We're interrupted by a crash across the dining room. I spot the overturned table and shattered soup tureen before I see Finnick Odair standing over it, holding his steak knife over an older man who is cowering on the floor.  
  
Haymitch stands up.  
  
"Are you crazy?" Finnick yells. "Don't you ever touch me again! You get it? I can think of twelve people who could tell you why, if they could still talk."  
  
The man on the floor gets to his feet. "You insolent, spoiled child. The Gamemakers will hear about this."  
  
"I hope so. I know what the rules are about trades for sponsorships."  
  
The man smiles unpleasantly. "I wasn't proposing a trade, boy." He turns and leaves.  
  
Haymitch and I go over to help Finnick clean up.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finnick's life at home starts shaping his life in the Capitol, which continues to deteriorate, while Haymitch and Effie deal with each other's addictions.

Finnick is called in for a conversation with the Peacekeepers, and he comes back sullen and defiant, muttering under his breath about how he'll defend himself against anyone he needs to defend himself against. He stays inside the Games compound, meeting with sponsors in glass-walled conference rooms (twice, he storms out on women who are dressed entirely inappropriately for a business meeting), sticking close to the older victors.  
  
He takes a particular shine to Haymitch, who he claims was always his "favorite" victor, aside from Mags. He actually develops a rather sweet habit of following Haymitch around and asking him questions at every opportunity. Chaff seems surprised that Haymitch isn't annoyed by all of this. Quite to the contrary, Haymitch is deeply pleased, and spends most of the time that he's not coaching Rabbie and Dandelion carefully coaching Finnick through the business end of mentoring. I'm not sure why Chaff is surprised. Haymitch thrives on being needed, and here, at last, is someone who definitely isn't going to be going home in the cold car on the train.  
  
"Finnick's close to his dad," Mags explains to me over drinks, while we watch the two of them cracking up laughing over something at the District Four table. Given Finnick's hand gestures, it's something a little off-color. "And Haymitch isn't entirely unlike Doolin. I think Finnick sees that." She rolls her eyes. "Also, Carolyn is a big fan of Haymitch's. She's always asking how he is. I think there's some hero worship going on there."  
  
"Finnick isn't going to be disappointed if he finds out about the drinking?"  
  
Mags laughs. "No, honey. There's nobody in Panem who doesn't know Haymitch drinks too much. I may have my work cut out for me keeping Finnick's nose _out_ of the bottle, if Haymitch makes it look like a good idea."  
  
"I hadn't thought of that. I don't think Haymitch would like people copying that."  
  
"I've already had that conversation with Finnick. Unfortunately, Haymitch thinks it's a perfectly reasonable way to handle the Games."  
  
"Handle them?"  
  
"You know -- you start to feel too much, so you numb it."  
  
"Maybe he needs real medicine. Taking a depressant for depression seems a little counter-intuitive."  
  
Mags looks at me very strangely, but doesn't pursue the idea. I guess they don't have much access in the districts, anyway.  
  
We try very hard to get the children to go into an alliance with District Four. Finnick's popularity is still high, despite his occasional fights with sponsors, and they have a lot of money. Finnick and Mags both want to work with Haymitch, and both rather detest Brutus, who leads the inner district alliance. Unfortunately, Fee and Rowlin want to team with "winners," and Dandy doesn't want any alliances at all. Rabbie is open to the idea of an alliance, but after Fee berates him in training, he is distinctly uninterested in District Four. I try to cobble together an alliance for him with District Six, but the paperwork keeps getting lost. I finally manage to make friends with the District Five escort, Henedina Messersmith, and I'm able to work with Tanager Lowe to get her tribute, Hopper Lamb, to team up with Rabbie.  
  
It's a weak alliance, but they manage to get away from the Cornucopia, which is a step further than Dandy gets on her own.  
  
The arena biome this year is a forest of giant, unclimbable trees. The Cornucopia is set into a stylized version of one, with arches cut into the bottom, so it can be approached from four directions. The tree itself stretches out of the camera's range. Over at the District Seven table, I see Blight and Jack looking quite relieved, as both of District Seven's tributes make it out safely, each with a small backpack.  
  
The District Six tributes manage to find one another, but as they run madly from the Cornucopia, they're attacked by a wolf. It seems very early to bring out mutts, but neither of the mentors from Six seems surprised. Then again, they're clearly quite done up on morphling, as usual.  
  
Altogether, nine are lost at or around the Cornucopia.  
  
Rabbie and Hopper are still running through the woods when Haymitch gets back. We work with Tanager to try and decide what they'll need. District Five is mostly urban (though surrounded by forest outside the fence), and she doesn't have any particular ideas. We're still working on it when Hopper hears a fast running stream and they go toward it eagerly. The inner district kids are lying in wait.  
  
The field is down by half the first day.  
  
I have no reason to stay at Games Headquarters. I usually do, to help Haymitch where he needs it, but he's called away to a meeting almost as soon as he's off the phone with Rabbie's parents. Several of the mentors are being pulled away again this year. Mags says it probably has to do with the late trains in District Six. I have no idea why anyone would think Haymitch would know about that.  
  
Out on the street, the tone is much more normal than it was last year. There are still some Fannicks out there, pulling for Rowlin (seeing it as something of a second win for Finnick), but there's a much more mixed group at the parties. Of course, any fans that Twelve had are gone already, switched out to districts with a chance left, but a few people recognize me and ask for an autograph. Some ask when Haymitch will get some good tributes -- they like him and they like Twelve, but we never seem to stand a chance, do we?  
  
And what kind of name is "Dandelion," anyway? This is a common comment, and a cause of great mirth. Her body isn't even back from the arena yet, and people are already joking that next year, they'll send Ragweed and Nettle.  
  
I excuse myself. For the first time in months, I'm starting to feel weepy. I go home and take my pills -- my job is over for the year -- and they bring me back up. Next year. It'll be better next year.  
  
I spend the next few days going to Games parties, trying to woo sponsors away from other long shot districts. Henedina and I get into a friendly competition over a District Five sponsor, which she ends up winning, though his friend, who hasn't sponsored before, decides to come on board for Twelve next year. They place an early wager, and joke about whether the power district would last longer without coal, or the coal district would last longer without a customer to sell to.  
  
After the quick kills at the bloodbath, the Games begin to drag. It's a large arena, and the tributes are far apart after the first two days. They win battles with mutts, and hardly ever battle each other. That means there's a need for a lot of filler. Unsurprisingly, they do a special on Finnick, portraying him as something of a spoiled brat. This doesn't bother the Fannicks, who are sure he's being misrepresented anyway, and it doesn’t surprise anyone else. The general sentiment among the older population seems to be that Finnick let his fame go to his head, and is acting out to get back some attention.  
  
"What do you expect?" an old man on the street says. "He's too young for that kind of admiration. And all of them really are a bit spoiled, don't you think?"  
  
This duly leads to the extravagances of victor lifestyles. Brutus has installed a hot water pool in his back yard. Beetee and Wiress have broken down the fence between their yards and built a special, custom light fountain, which pours sparks down like permanent fireworks. They also have a state of the art laboratory, and Wiress has a collection of robots to handle clean-up tasks. (They don't mention that she's designed and built all of them _in_ the lab. I only know it from spending time with Beetee.) Enobaria has had several plastic surgeries, including a vanity job on her teeth, as a reminder of her final kill. Haymitch's wardrobe budget is bigger than most people's salaries. It goes on. I imagine Haymitch back at the Viewing Center, complaining that they don't let him spend his money on anything that matters.  
  
Haymitch gets word on the sixth night that they want to bring him to Claudius's set the next morning to analyze the arena from a mentor's perspective for the people at home, and he calls me back in to help him get ready. I can tell on the phone that he's drunk, and by the time I get there, he's even worse. I give him some pills to help wake him up a little bit while I wash him up.  
  
"You _know_ they're filling time, Haymitch," I say. "You know they could put you on television any time they wanted to. Why were you drinking?"  
  
"Duties discharged," he mumbles. "Why do they want me to analyze something?"  
  
"I think it's a good idea," I tell him. "No one understands the arena better than you do. The people back in Twelve should see what you can do."  
  
"They know what I do. I drink, and I get their kids killed. Then I drink some more."  
  
"I hate it when you talk like that," I say.  
  
"What else, exactly, do I do, Effie?"  
  
"Maybe you should ask Finnick Odair."  
  
"He's a good kid."  
  
"Yes, he is. And he wants to be like you. So ask him what you do."  
  
He lets me finish. As drunk as he is, I expect one of his affectionate advances, but he doesn't make one. He doesn't even joke about it.  
  
I sleep in the escort's room, and set my alarm early enough to make sure I can get Haymitch to the studio on time. He's grumpy in the morning. I offer him something to pick him up before the cameras go on. He tells me that he'll keep to his own vices, and leave me to mine.  
  
For all of his unpleasantness in person, he comes off fairly well on camera. I wait in the wings and watch the production monitors. I doubt anyone outside of the Viewing Center has ever seen him take an arena apart. He talks about each of the alliances, and what strengths they have. He points out resources that are lying around waiting to be picked up, and says that none of the tributes are completely out of the running..  
  
"If you were in the arena," Claudius asks, "how would you handle the distance between yourself and the other tributes."  
  
He laughs. "Come on, Claudius -- you remember my Games. Keeping some distance between me and the other tributes was more or less my whole strategy."  
  
"How would you recommend the Gamemakers bring the tributes back together?"  
  
Haymitch's eyes flash dangerously. "Beg your pardon?"  
  
"If you were a Gamemaker, what would you do to move the Games along?"  
  
I look at Haymitch there in the studio chair. He's smiling just as he was before, and his posture hasn't changed. But he understands what he's just been asked, and I can tell that he's furious. I can't put my finger on anything about him that's telling me this, but it's obvious. The Gamemakers are asking for his ideas on how to kill tributes faster.  
  
I try to calculate how to do the damage control if Haymitch strangles Claudius Templesmith on live television.  
  
I move my head and peek out around the stage curtain, staying out of the way of the cameras, and catch Haymitch's eye.  
  
He nods, then, out of nowhere, pulls out the country-boy persona that he uses to charm older ladies with money. "Well, I'm no Gamemaker. I reckon those nice folks upstairs have all their ideas raring to go. Lots of smart people up there. They don't need a half-broke hick to tell 'em the lay of the land, and you wouldn't want to spoil it for the audience. I bet they've got plenty of ideas of their own."  
  
"Well, surely, something must have occurred to you. You've apparently thought of strategies for nearly the entire field."  
  
"I think like a tribute, Claudius. You know that."  
  
Claudius tries to press a little bit more, but Haymitch won't give on this. Finally, they release him.  
  
"What do they think they're doing?" he fumes as we walk back across to the Viewing Center. "What gives them the right to ask me that?" He frowns. "And why are half the cameras in the Capitol going inside the Viewing Center? They're not supposed to film there."  
  
"That's a custom, not a rule," I say automatically, but I'm not sure, either. I look up at one of the giant broadcast screens. The last few minutes of Haymitch's interview must not have made the broadcast, because they're live in the arena, where Rowlin Mucky, on a routine patrol around the land claimed by the inner districts, has run across the girl from Seven, Anneliese Baker. Anneliese is a long shot, but here, she's brutal. Rowlin is fighting for his life.  
  
Finnick's tribute.  
  
We quicken our pace and get inside just as Anneliese lets out a wild war whoop and buries a handmade wooden spear in Rowlin's neck.. We have to fight through the press. Bright lights are flashing among the mentors.  
  
"Finnick!" people are yelling. "Finnick, how are you feeling now? Did you think your tribute had a chance?"  
  
Finnick backs away from the table and heads for the booths, but he's intercepted by reporters streaming in past the barricade.  
  
Haymitch leans over and whispers, "Get Caesar on this," then he starts moving. He doesn't pause. He winds his way through the crowd and grabs Finnick by the arm, leading him toward the mentors' lounge, where the cameras really are forbidden. He can't get all the way inside -- the main door is blocked -- so he opens the door to a janitors' closet and hides Finnick behind the door. Mags goes to make the phone call to Rowlin's parents.  
  
"You want to talk about what it feels like to lose a tribute," Haymitch says, "then talk to someone who's been through it a few times. Someone who's not fifteen years old."  
  
Before I can watch any more of it, I fight my way to the District Twelve table and pick up the phone. Caesar's secretary says he's catching his daily nap -- "He sometimes gets three hours a day during the Games" -- but I tell her to turn on the live feed. Less than a minute later, Caesar is on the phone. Five minutes after that, Games security backs the reporters off, and tells them that the custom is now a rule. They are not permitted in the building.  
  
I go to Haymitch, who opens the closet door slowly. Finnick is sitting on the floor, red-eyed, his hands buried in his hair. He looks terrified. Mags shoos everyone else back to their tables.  
  
Haymitch reaches down, probably just meaning to help him up, but Finnick has finally reached the end of his tether. He puts his arms around Haymitch and starts to weep. Haymitch lets him hang on, and I hear him say, "It's okay, Finnick. You're okay. We've all been there. You're with friends."  
  
Finnick spends the rest of the day with Haymitch and me, since Mags is still mentoring Fee. He gains his composure back more quickly than I would have thought, and apologizes for "going off the rails."  
  
"I just couldn't take it again," he says. "They've been on me all year. I'm tired of people grabbing at me."  
  
"I know," Haymitch says. "I only had a little of it, and I was ready to snap. I'm surprised it took this long."  
  
"And the sponsors… you know some of them actually threatened me?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Yeah -- do you know Adamaris Brinn?"  
  
Haymitch's jaw goes tight. "I'm familiar with her."  
  
"She said she wasn't trading any sponsorships. She knows the rules. But then she said she could make my life difficult if I wasn't… _nice_ to her. Then the _president_ called and told me to be nice to her."  
  
"The president?" I repeat.  
  
Finnick nods. "He said she's his personal friend, and I hurt her feelings when I told her to go away. I told him what she wanted. She said she wanted to be my" -- he wrinkles his nose -- " _first_."  
  
"What did the president say?" I ask.  
  
"He laughed and said she's an old woman with fantasies, and it wouldn't have killed me to flirt with her a little. He told me to apologize to her for being rude."  
  
"Did you?"  
  
"No. She's the one who was rude. I mean, she just stuck her hand in my lap. She's lucky I don't hit women, except in the arena."  
  
"And Snow? How did he take it?" Haymitch says, narrowing his eyes.  
  
"He said I'd learn to be sorry."  
  
Haymitch sits back, looking stunned. It isn't actually easy to stun Haymitch. "Do you have a girl back home?" he asks.  
  
Finnick looks up. "Why?"  
  
"Well, you could take away the temptation to be _first_ pretty easily."  
  
He laughs. "Yeah, right." He shakes his head. "I was totally serious in my interview last year. My parents won't let me date until I'm sixteen."  
  
"What a strange rule!" I say.  
  
"It's pretty normal in Four," Finnick says. "I mean, hardly anyone obeys it, but everyone's parents make an effort."  
  
"Be careful of Maris Brinn," Haymitch says. "I mean it. She's no one to mess around with. Seeder kept me away from her my first year."  
  
Finnick shrugs. "I can take care of myself. Really."  
  
Haymitch obviously has deep misgivings, but he lets the conversation move on.  
  
The Games continue to move at a snail's pace. By the end of the second week, we're still only down to seven, and people are getting restless. Five of the remaining tributes are in the Inner district alliance, and they seem to be having a comfortable camp-out, with food sent mostly from Finnick's sponsors. Every now and then, they'll play fight with the stated purpose of entertaining the audience, but they're fairly clear that they're waiting until it's just them for melee. The other two -- Anneliese from Seven, and the boy from Ten -- are wandering aimlessly around.  
  
Finally, the Gamemakers intervene directly and start a fire, pushing everyone in toward the Cornucopia. It takes the boy from Ten directly, and Fee goes down trying to push Philo out of the way of a falling branch. Their supplies are burned to nothing.  
  
And somehow, they miscount. The four remaining inner district kids have no idea that Anneliese is still out there, and the boy from One taunts Philo into starting melee, ridiculing Fee for trying to save him.  
  
Philo has been competent so far, but now he's deadly. He cuts down the others in only ten minutes, then casts his spear into the encroaching fire.  
  
He stares at the sky and waits. This shot cuts away to Anneliese, also waiting.  
  
They both head for the Cornucopia, away from the fire, each thinking it's just a matter of moments.  
  
Instead, it's two more days. Weaponless and alone, Philo runs from Anneliese, into the smoldering woods. He shouts at the sky that he needs a blowgun, but Brutus doesn't send one. Instead, he uses the last of the alliance money to send a knife. Philo looks less than thrilled, and I can't blame him -- Anneliese has chipped out a strong stone blade for her wooden spear, and she's looking to be District Seven's first female winner. She's also lost all touch with reality.  
  
They come to blows during a gaudy, smoke-enhanced sunset, the golden beams of light flickering around them like knives. Anneliese strikes out at Philo's face, tearing at it viciously, but he keeps his head. He stabs her, and the last cannon goes off.  
  
He won't let them remove his scars during recovery.  
  
I say goodbye to Haymitch at the cold car. For some reason, he grabs hold of me and holds me tightly against him. "Don't go away," he whispers. "Please, Effie."  
  
I kiss his cheek, and promise that I'm not going anywhere. There's nowhere _to_ go, even if I wanted to. He looks away miserably, then sits down between his tributes, and heads for home.  
  
People are anxious to move on from the Games this year. They were long and dull, and there are a lot of complaints about another forest arena. People want something new. The Gamemakers promise some exciting new arenas in the upcoming years. A few sponsors tearfully complain about how rude Finnick has been. No one cares.  
  
I find myself thinking about Haymitch's last words to me quite a lot. The doctor raises my dose of Pherolen, and the thoughts pass away. I dance over my days.  
  
After a month, everyone has moved on to other concerns, and when the Games music blares over the news, it seems like something from a bygone world.  
  
It even takes a minute to recognize Finnick Odair.  
  
That's only partly because of distance from the Games, though. Finnick's usually calm, lovely face is contorted in grief and rage, and he is screaming on the beach while Mags holds him back from the sea.  
  
Doolin Odair's boat is on fire in the gulf, and as the newscaster mournfully tells the story, it goes down to the bottom of the sea, all hands lost.  
  
Two days after that, Carolyn Odair is arrested for sabotage of the boat, and suspicion in the murder of Ausonius Glass. They don't show much of her. I catch a glimpse of red hair, and hear her screaming that she's innocent, that Finnick must believe that, but that's all there is.  
  
After that, the news goes quiet again.  
  
When Finnick returns for the Sixty-Seventh Games (the year I call Tholom Magree and Gabby Casterbridge, both lost at the Cornucopia, though Haymitch and I stay around to help Chaff), he keeps his distance from everyone. He's weirdly cheerful, though, and says there have been a lot of nice people in the Capitol helping him through his troubled year. At the parade, he sits with a beautiful young actress who he claims he's talked to on the phone for hours. He's taken to dinner by an old sponsor. He goes to parties with a plain woman who seems genuinely delighted just to have his company. And two days into the Games, he leaves the Viewing Center for lunch with Adamaris Brinn.  
  
He spends the evening going back and forth between the District Four table and the showers downstairs in the spa. Someone sees him talking to Martius Snow, the head Gamemaker. Martius walks away from the conversation, looking furious.  
  
Finnick's hands start to seem raw from the scrubbing. Haymitch asks him what's wrong. He says it's nothing. He gets another call late in the evening, and sets the receiver down slowly. He goes to Jack Anderson. The two of them talk for a long time, then Finnick goes off alone. He shows up on late night coverage -- which I watch from home -- dancing at a party and extolling the virtues of his host, who's been very helpful to him since he first arrived in the Capitol.  
  
It's the old man he was holding a knife over last year. I run back to the Training Center from my apartment and find Haymitch drunk out of his skull and raving. There's too much that can be picked up here, so I take him back to my apartment to cool down. He looks strange here among my things.  
  
"Idiot kid!" he fumes. "I told him to be careful!"  
  
"Haymitch…"  
  
"I told him to be careful," he says again. "You can take care of yourself. No one's a victor if you can't take care of yourself. It's everyone else. Aw, Effie, what did they do? Who are these people?"  
  
I don't have an answer. I crawl up onto the sofa beside him and put my arms around him and tell him that it's not his fault.  
  
He clings to me until he falls asleep, and I stay beside him for a while after that, caressing him until he finally quiets down. I find a blanket and wrap him in it, then kiss him softly and go to bed.  
  
In the morning, he doesn't remember how he got here.  
  
"Did we…?" he starts when he comes into the kitchen.  
  
"I don't take advantage of you when you're drunk."  
  
"Oh." He smiles faintly. "How about hung over?"  
  
I laugh and roll my eyes at him. "Take a shower."  
  
A few minutes later, I hear the water go on. I briefly consider joining him, but I decide he probably didn't mean the near-invitation he gave me. Hangovers aren't generally conducive to being affectionate.  
  
I take my pills. By the time Haymitch is out of the shower, they've kicked in. I go into my bedroom to help him get ready.  
  
He takes my hands and holds me at arm's length, then says, frustrated, "Pherolen."  
  
"What about it?"  
  
"I looked it up, Effie. Just like you said. Common, supposedly not addictive. And not a 'mood adjustor.' People used to take it for parties. Some people still do."  
  
"It makes me feel better."  
  
"It makes you feel _nothing_."  
  
"I feel _you_."  
  
He frowns and lets go of me. "I'm not going to take advantage of you while you're high." He starts pulling on his clothes from yesterday. "Effie, you have to stop taking it. This isn't you. I miss you."  
  
"Why don't you want me to feel better?"  
  
"Because some things are worth feeling bad about, if you can feel."  
  
"You're one to talk. You drink yourself numb every year."  
  
"And you hate that. So why are you doing it to yourself?"  
  
I leave the room and tell him to let himself out.  
  
The Games go on for three weeks this time, with the kills more evenly spread than last year. Finnick continues to be seen all over the Capitol, even more after he loses his tribute. The victor is an eighteen year old blond boy from District One. His name is Gloss.  
  
Haymitch and I manage to patch things up after our argument, and I promise to cut back if I can. I don't really make an effort.  
  
I look at the shows lampooning Finnick's Capitol romances and I think about him scrubbing himself raw after "lunch" with Adamaris Brinn. I look at the footage of the new victor, Gloss, who is trying to shield a beautiful younger sister from the cameras. I think about Jack and the women he squires around, and his "personal assistant" at home.  
  
I plan to go to Caesar. Caesar has to be able to do something.  
  
But my plans are cut short by vicious news. Martius Snow, who is married to Caesar's secretary, Peri, disappears with her on a routine visit to District Six. The train they are on is found derailed and burned, but no one can identify anyone's body. Martius has a newborn daughter. President Snow takes her in.  
  
The Capitol is gripped by rumors of rebellion, and Caesar Flickerman is in mourning. He was very close to Peri, and he seems unable to function without her. He even challenges the president for custody of the baby, though the fight is a foregone conclusion.  
  
Mimi becomes convinced that the districts are going to take over and send Capitol children into the arena. She is hysterical about this. All of us take turns looking after her, but it does no good. She is awake at all hours, and one night, she takes too many pills. She's found in her back yard, next to a fountain statue of a small boy laughing. On it, nearly run off with the fountain's water by the time anyone gets there, is the word "Reaped." I am there at the celebration of her life, but I can't seem to feel anything but her absence.  
  
I find a new doctor, a Games trauma specialist who helps me get off Pherolen. I start feeling terrible again within hours, but I feel like I _should_. Mimi leaves me her house, but I can't begin to afford the inheritance taxes on it. Haymitch calls me frantically from Merle Undersee's, trying to find a way to help -- he doesn't want to lose Mimi's house -- but he's not permitted. In the end, I have to sell it back to the government. Haymitch asks me to keep the statue she wrote on, and I send it to him in District Twelve. I don't know what he does with it there. I never see it again.  
  
I don't know when he starts drinking in earnest after that, but when I get there for the Sixty-Eighth reaping (Moss Bullard and Della Farragut), he hasn't even made an effort to sober up. I do the best I can with him, and even point out that I've done as he wanted, but in the end, the most we can hope for is that the cameras stay off of him. This is the drunkest I've seen him, and it actually frightens me. There's a new detox pill out, which is supposed to actually absorb the poison in the alcohol, and I decide to make sure I have some next year. This year, the best I can do is send him into the shower on the train until he's alert enough to help Moss and Della.  
  
Gloss's sister, Cashmere, is reaped from District One that year. People love this, and are almost as wild for her as they were for Finnick. Finnick is called in for interviews on the subject, which he seems to treat as welcome breaks from his social schedule. The arena is a delicate fairyland theme this year, and Cashmere seems to follow its logic better than anyone else (Gloss, trying not to seem frantic, says that she always loved fairy books). She wins in a little over three weeks. Della and Moss don't make it past the Cornucopia.  
  
Things even out a little bit over the next year. My new doctor prescribes something that actually seems to keep me level without making the world go away, and Haymitch takes another stab at sobriety in the spring. He's dry and irritable when I get there for the Sixty-Ninth reaping, but at least he's not dead at the feet of a stone fountain. I call a skinny, ill-kempt Seam girl with broken shoes. Her name is Butterfly Skaggs, and Haymitch tells me that her family is nearly as poor as his was, and less educated. The boy, a quiet, strong-looking sixteen-year-old, has a name that could have come out of a bad romance novel: River Boldwood. I can tell already that if he makes it past the Cornucopia, he'll be a fan favorite.  
  
From the other districts, I see that we have the usual sort of mix. District One has two statuesque volunteers, trying their best to be another version of Gloss and Cashmere. District Two gives us warriors, and District Three has a pair of thirteen year old intellectuals. District Four again has both tributes older than Finnick, but for some reason, they won't let him off as a mentor, even though his social calendar seems pretty full again.  
  
No one _really_ stands out at the reapings, though the news pretends to be fascinated with several of the offerings.  
  
The last one anyone would expect to go anywhere is the skinny, terrified fifteen year old orphan girl from District Seven, who stands there in the rain, water pouring from the ends of her pigtails, weeping and coughing out a bad case of influenza.  
  
Her name is Johanna Mason.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the 69th Games begin, Effie meets a belligerent girl from the Seam and her kind but none-too-bright district partner, along with the sickly, scared girl from District Seven.

**Part Three: Innocence**

  
  
**Chapter Nineteen**  
"Stuff it," Butterfly Skaggs says, glaring at me across the table.  
  
"I beg your pardon?"  
  
"All them extra forks, and six different glasses, and cutting up a cooked pigeon with a knife and fork instead of just eating it? I'm not doing it."  
  
"I know it seems strange --"  
  
"I don't want to be like _you_ or your Capitol friends. They're going to kill me anyway. I'm not bothering to put on airs before they do."  
  
"The sponsors --"  
  
"Haven't seen anything from District Twelve in years. They're betting on Haymitch, and he ain't --" She sneers. "The odds ain't in his favor, if you like that better."  
  
"Butterfly, you're about to spend a great deal of time being seen by the entire country --"  
  
"The country can stuff it, too." She stands up and glares at me. "I don't give a rip what the Capitol thinks, and I wouldn't want anyone in the district to see me looking like… _you_. You're pathetic. What are you wearing, anyway, some kind of glass?"  
  
"It's a specially treated plastic that moves --"  
  
"Trying to show off your panties?"  
  
In my head, I hear the boys at school taunting me, wanting to know what was under my wig. It seems like it should feel further away than it does. "They're shorts."  
  
"They're _real_ short, all right. I got panties longer than that. And did something get exposed to radiation and die on your head? Do you have any idea how dumb you look? Everyone thinks so. I'm not planning to look that way."  
  
I take a deep breath. Somewhere in the next car, Haymitch is helping River Boldwood muddle through the closet of clothes that the Gamemakers sent so he'll arrive in the Capitol in something other than the oversized long coat and jeans he was reaped in. ("I'm real sorry, I just grew too fast this spring, and nothing fits," he said when the cameras went off. I told him I'd try to play it off as a fashion trend in Twelve, and I asked Mayor Undersee to get a handful of other boys dressed that way to wander around the broadcast screen where the cameras can see them before they head back.)  
  
Butterfly is a better bet. She's ignorant, but not stupid, and both Haymitch and I thought it would be a simple matter to teach her a few skills and get her dressed in something nice and comfortable for the arrival.  
  
She is still wearing her blue jeans and a shirt that seems to be the cut off top of a set of miners' overalls. She was barefoot when I reaped her, and I saw her parents led away from the farewell room to be punished for allowing her at the reaping like that, but all three of them just glared out with ridiculous defiance.   
  
I straighten my skirt (and wonder obsessively if everyone does, in fact, think I look stupid), then say, "You don't need to look like me. This is simply a popular skirt this season. We want you to look like _you_ , but in decent clothes. Don't you want to wear something decent, and made of comfortable material? It'll feel good."  
  
"I'm a District Twelve girl," Butterfly says, and looks out the window. In the background, the District Four reaping is playing. I see Finnick reflected as a ghostly image in the window beside her, floating serenely along through the trees as his tributes for the year are called. "If I die, I'll die as a District Twelve girl."  
  
"I've known a good number of District Twelve girls now," I tell her. "I haven't had one yet who's been sorry to put on a silk blouse, light as air."  
  
"If I want something light as air, I'll take my top off. I do it at home, all the time."  
  
"You do not," Haymitch says dully from the doorway, where he's standing rubbing his head. "I've been District Twelve my whole life. You'd be more likely to go topless in the Capitol than on the Seam, and you know it. The whole town would be gossiping, and your mama would be embarrassed."  
  
"My mama told me not to let them turn me into one of them."  
  
"That's the most ridiculous rebellion I ever heard of. Why are you giving Effie a hard time?"  
  
"I don't have to kiss her ass just because you like to. And word is, you're not averse to giving her a hard… _time_ … now and again, either."  
  
Haymitch clenches his jaw. "Effie, you go help River. His hair's pretty matted up. Butterfly and I are going to have a long talk. Right now."  
  
"What are you going to do?" Butterfly asks. "Kill me?"  
  
"I'm examining my options," Haymitch says. "Effie, go. Butterfly will give you a long and detailed apology later."  
  
"Hell I will."  
  
"Effie."  
  
I nod and go.  
  
River is in his cabin, finally dressed in a pair of decent slacks and a bright blue shirt. He looks a good deal like Haymitch did at his reaping -- Haymitch's shirt was several years out of fashion then, but this year, the style has come back out of absolutely nowhere.  
  
River is staring plaintively at a pair of shiny dress shoes, and carrying a pair of socks in his hands. "Haymitch told me to put my shoes on," he says. "Only I don't usually wear proper shoes like that, or fancy socks. Do the socks go on the inside, just like regular shoes? Or am I supposed to wear them _outside_ , so everyone can see they're… Haymitch said 'silk.'"  
  
I smile. "The silk is just a special treat for your feet. No one needs to see it."  
  
"Oh. Right." He sits down and starts putting the socks on. On the television, Claudius finishes an impossible analysis of the two completely unknown kids from District Six. It moves on to District Seven, and the wet, crying girl in pigtails comes on again. "Think she's sick?" River asks. "Will they give her medicine for the arena, so she's got a chance?" He blanches. "Am I supposed to not want her to have a chance?"  
  
"You want what you want," I say. "Be yourself." I look at her, shivering in the rain. "I hope they give her medicine, though. They have some treatments that can clear up anything. I think they usually give them to tributes. It's…" I'm not sure how to explain it, though I know what Haymitch would say: _No fun to watch them all die of the sniffles when they could be murdering each other._ It doesn't seem like a good thing to say to River. "I'm sure they'll want her to have the same chance as anyone."  
  
"She doesn't look like she's got a chance. She looks like she knows it."  
  
He's right. She's skinny anyway, and as the camera lingers on her bony face, I can see sores by her nose and mouth. She keeps trying to gather herself, but then breaks down in tears again. If it weren't for the sickness, she'd be pretty, if not beautiful. She has big brown eyes, and long, light brown hair that curls into large ringlets at the bottom of her pigtails. It's not a prettiness that would turn heads among the sponsors, though, even if they get her clear of her fever. I'm sure Finnick would tell her that it's just as well. Claudius takes only a moment to discount her -- "District Seven seems to have had some bad luck in its female tribute" -- before moving on to her district partner, a big lumberjack boy in a knit cap and a carefully tucked in plaid shirt.  
  
I shake my head and get to River's hair, which is, indeed, a matted mess. It didn't look too bad at the reaping, because his idea of "getting fancy" was slicking it down with coal oil from a lamp. The heavily matted underside worked like back combing, at least from a distance -- it just looked like a thick head of hair on television. Close up, it's a rat's nest.  
  
I tell him that we have two choices -- spend the rest of the trip trying to unknot it, or give him a short haircut, maybe even shave his head. This would be a shame. Like so many in District Twelve, the head of hair hidden in the tangles is wonderfully, almost decadently thick. But I don't want him to spend hours of one of his last days in pain while I try to yank through it.  
  
He opts for the cut. It ends up being a full shave. I give his scalp a polish, and I'll spray tan it before the Games so he isn't two-toned until it grows (if he makes it past the Cornucopia), but it looks all right.  
  
"So, that's what my head looks like," he says. "I never knew. Lots of bumps there." He looks up shyly. "Do you think I might be able to have something to eat? I didn't get anything this morning. We were saving the food for tonight."  
  
He is very pleased with the food on the train. I have to slow him down before he eats himself sick.  
  
Hours later, with the sun already down, Butterfly comes to the dining car. She's still in blue jeans, but Haymitch apparently talked her into one of the silk tank tops, and she's brushed her hair. She sits down sullenly.  
  
I raise my eyebrow at her.  
  
"I ain't apologizing, if that's what you're waiting for," she says.   
  
"You need to learn to speak more politely before Caesar's show," I tell her.  
  
"Not doing it."  
  
"You don't have a choice."  
  
"You can stick me in a chair, and they can even make me stand up, but I'm not going to talk to that old ghoul, either. I'll just sit it out, and see what he does for three minutes if I don't talk to him."  
  
"You'll only hurt yourself. Caesar is an important ally."  
  
"He's a Capitol tool, just like you."  
  
"If I'm counted among the likes of Caesar Flickerman, than I'm doing something right."  
  
She snorts, and digs into her food with her fingers.  
  
Once I get both of them bundled off to sleep, I find Haymitch in the lounge car, grimly reading their files. "She apologize?" he asks.  
  
"No."  
  
He grinds his teeth. "I don't know what that's about," he says. " _I'm_ sorry, anyway. They must be having another… whatever it is they have just before they break a few windows and write slogans on the wall and call each other rebels. You okay?"  
  
"I'm fine. Haymitch, she has to get that under control before anyone hears her talk. She'll lose sponsors. She'll lose them for River, too. And… well, they'll look at you more."  
  
"Can't have _that_ ," he mutters.  
  
"It's fairly clear that she's not going to listen to me. It's going to have to be you. She's threatening not to talk to Caesar."  
  
Haymitch jabs irritably at a plate of pasta. "You know, sometimes, I sit in my big house and think I was happier on the Seam. Then I remember. They used to call me names because I read a lot and had friends in town. I guess they figure I've gotten too snooty for even the merchants now. Making friends in the Capitol. I'm not 'real' District Twelve. Wonder what they'd do if they found out about my library pass."  
  
"I imagine something roughly similar to what my practical school classmates would say if they knew I used it sometimes."  
  
"Yeah. What's the matter with us? We better learn our place pretty soon." He starts to smile, then gives it up as a bad job. "She's got fight in her, I'll give her that. But if she offends the Gamemakers, they won't even give her a _chance_ to fight."  
  
We have a late snack together. He's in a terrible mood from not drinking ("They shut down my supplier," he gripes), and I'm not feeling particularly cheerful, so we don't talk very much, but we've been doing this for a decade now, and we don't really need to talk anymore.  
  
As I expected, the next day is a nightmare. River is understandably popular with the cameras (he's a handsome boy, even with his head shaved -- I sell this to the production team as his wanting to try something daring), but he has trouble following even the simplest instructions. Haymitch finally settles for "Do whatever your prep team says." There's no time for extended explanations, because Butterfly is putting up a howling fight at every step. She makes rude gestures at the crowd near the train. She spits at a Peacekeeper. She screams obscenities at the prep team when they try to lead her away. Haymitch sends me off with River and actually throws her over his shoulder and carries her, kicking and screaming, to prep.  
  
"It's not that I don't know how she feels," he says when he gets back. "She probably thinks she's striking a blow. But I want to keep her alive. If I can get her to fight the right way, I maybe can do it, though they better give her a house _way_ down the green from mine if she wins."  
  
"You think she could win?"  
  
"If she manages to get through training without them taking that huge chip on her shoulder as a neon-lit target? She might actually be able to pull it off. I doubt it, though. Most of these fire-breathers are all show."  
  
It takes a long time for her to get through prep. Therinus's new partner, a whip-thin boy named Ulysses, says that she's been biting at the prep team. Haymitch goes back up to get her under control, joking that maybe he should trade tributes with Enobaria this year.  
  
River is in his coveralls, which really don't cover all that much, as the front is ripped open and the sleeves torn off. I get an earful from Therinus about the shaved head, but the make-up team actually managed something interesting with the coal dust this year, letting it settle and flow in the natural sweat patterns on his scalp. River himself is unimpressed with this. "If my daddy went out in public with all that grime from the mines on him, my mother'd about bust a vein screaming at him about it."  
  
I don't point out that she let her son out on national television with his hair so matted that it had to be shaved off.  
  
He's afraid of the horses, so I introduce him to them and let him pet them a little bit. The Games horses are incredibly tame, and he decides he likes them. He sees Finnick across the room, feeding them sugar cubes, and asks first if that is really the famous Mr. Odair, then if it could be possible to get some of what he's feeding the horses. I call Finnick, who is very patient with River and teaches him to feed the horses properly.  
  
The tributes are starting to come back now. District Ten seems to have gone for a cowboy look this year. District Eight, always a good one for fabric (of course) is in a complicated patchwork design. The girl from Seven comes out, looking wobbly on her feet. She's dressed in a heavy brown corduroy dress, and has a vine covered with chiffon leaves wrapped around her, coming to a canopy over her head. She sways as she passes us.  
  
Finnick reaches out and steadies her. "Are you going to be okay?"  
  
She looks at him and blinks, her large, sunken eyes somewhat dazed. "They gave me a pill so I don't sneeze. I'm dizzy." Her chest hitches a few times. "I… I can't be dizzy in the arena. I'll fall off the platform and blow up!"  
  
Behind her, I see the District Two tributes pointing at her and snickering behind their hands. I don't mention it, but I doubt I have to for her to know.  
  
"That's just a stopgap for the parade," Finnick says. "You'll see. My tribute had a stomach bug a couple of years ago. They gave him pills to keep him from throwing up in the chariot, but after, they gave him something that cleared him up overnight. It's not all that pleasant, but you won't be dizzy in training."  
  
"Okay." She looks at me, her eyes scanning over my skirt (another of the glass-look ones). I wait for her to make a comment like Butterfly's, but instead, she says, "Isn't that Maxentius Maxim?"  
  
I blink, surprised. "Well, yes."  
  
She nods vaguely. "I thought so. I don't sleep much. I sometimes watch fashion shows on television. Is that uncomfortable? I was wondering when I saw the models walking."  
  
"Not really."  
  
"It's not hot or anything?"  
  
I shake my head and smile. "I'll tell you what. You're Jack's tribute, right? Jack's a friend of Haymitch's, so I'll most likely see him tomorrow. I'll get the skirt cleaned tonight and send it up with him. You can try it for yourself."  
  
She actually manages a smile. "Really? Thanks!" She bats disdainfully at her lightweight leaves. "I hope I get to wear something better for interviews," she says. "I look like a really sick tree."  
  
"Jo-jo!" Jack calls from the District Seven carriage.  
  
"I better go," she says. "I wish he wouldn't call me Jo-jo. Only my parents called me that."  
  
"So make him stop," Finnick says. There's not even a trace of humor in his voice. "You put your foot down and _make him stop._ He's waiting for you to do it, I bet."  
  
"Yeah. Right." She trudges over to her mentor.  
  
Finnick pets the horse a little, then says, "That girl's going to surprise people."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Did you see her get exactly what she wanted out of you? Sick and dizzy as she is, that's something. And she's in the middle of all of this, thinking about fashion shows."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So, you don't sit around District Seven -- let alone the Hunger Games -- watching Capitol fashion shows if you don't imagine some other world. She probably wants to know what's coming out next season." He shrugs. "I better get back. My tribute should be out soon." He smiles. "He's my age. Eighteen. They've all been eighteen, but starting next year, they'll all have to be younger than me. Finally. Think they'll listen?"  
  
He saunters away without waiting for an answer.  
  
"I think she's kind of pretty," River says. "And she seems nice." He goes back to petting the horse.  
  
A few minutes later, Haymitch escorts Butterfly down to the chariots. She's sullen, but she's been put into her costume, and is behaving herself. For some reason, she's attached a mockingjay feather to her coveralls. Her prep team looks exhausted.  
  
"Are we going to have trouble?" Haymitch asks her. "Or are you a team player?"  
  
"Team player," she grumbles. "But I better get to see the end of the game."  
  
"I'll do my part for that," Haymitch says. "But I can't do it if you offend everyone in sight."  
  
"Fine."  
  
"And you still owe Effie an apology. She's been nothing but nice to you."  
  
"It's all right," I say.  
  
"No. It's not."  
  
Butterfly grimaces and stares at her feet, then manages to say, "Sorry if I hurt your feelings, Miss Trinket."  
  
"I accept your apology," I say. "Now, you'd best get into the chariot. District One is ready to go."  
  
She climbs up. River steadies her a little bit when the horses start to move.  
  
They go out into the evening light.  
  
I stand back beside Haymitch. "What did you talk about?"  
  
"Strategy and tactics," he says. "She needed a little crash course."  
  
"What's the feather about?"  
  
"It's a district token. Lots of mockingjays in District Twelve." He doesn't address the issue further, and doesn't respond to any more questions about it, and apparently thinks that I'm somehow missing that it obviously has some further significance.  
  
I let him think so.  
  
As I expected, between his good looks and his romance novel name, River is a favorite after the parade, though one among several. I doubt we'll ever see the single-minded level of adulation that Finnick got again. Finnick's tribute is again found wanting in comparison to his mentor, but Mags's tribute -- a plucky looking girl with freckles and curly hair -- is popular. The boy from District Seven gets good remarks (and a hope that he doesn't catch whatever the girl has). Both tributes from District Two are well-represented in the throngs of Games fans, and a long-shot -- the boy from Six -- seems to be a favorite of a lot of people in the down-market part of town.  
  
Butterfly is barely mentioned, and the camera does not linger on her.  
  
During dinner, she lets me teach her the proper way to use basic silverware, but draws the line at using two separate forks for dinner and dessert. I relent, and she clearly feels that she's won a major battle. River isn't putting up a battle, but he keeps forgetting which fork he's used and which he hasn't, and can't seem to grasp that he's supposed to use one for the _whole_ meal, including the carrots, even though they're big enough pieces to pick up with his fingers.  
  
After we get them bundled off to bed, Haymitch and I watch a little bit of coverage. It's the same as ever. The announcer says that they will run a movie after mandatory viewing. It's going to be one of Mimi's. Haymitch turns it off without commentary.  
  
"I do owe you an apology," he says.  
  
"For what?"  
  
"Apparently, half the Seam thinks that you and I -- " He shrugs. "The other half probably thinks it, but doesn't care enough to talk about it to Butterfly. Sorry. I didn't tell them anything. I mean, except joking with the press about how I'm saving myself for you, and I'm pretty sure everyone can tell I'm joking. Maybe I said something when I was drunk. I don't always remember. If I did…sorry."  
  
"They'd be talking, anyway. People talk. I'm sure they talk in the Capitol, too."  
  
"Doubt it. If they did, Claudius would have a panel of experts talking about it for filler." He thinks about it. "Maybe I should watch Capitol filler and find out what I've been up to."  
  
I smile. "Anyway, there are worse rumors. I'm not worried."  
  
"I am. You're better off if people don't think you're getting pillow talk about… things."  
  
"You think they're saying we have time to talk about politics? How disappointing."  
  
He laughs. "Yeah. Clearly, we need to put the passion back in our imaginary love life."  
  
"Before you have a pretend affair with someone more interesting?"  
  
"Me? You'd accuse _me_ of pretend cheating? You're the one here with hundreds of possible make believe lovers."  
  
"I just get tired of your imaginary jealousy."  
  
He laughs. "Still. I'm sorry. I know you and I… but I'm no one you want to be saddled with in public."  
  
"The thing is, Haymitch, in public, I'm already saddled. And I don't mind. Really, I don't. If I did, I'd have told you to stop joking about it." I look at the blank video screens. "Do you really think Butterfly has a chance?"  
  
"I don't know. I was hoping she'd go over better at the parade. She's tough, and she's not dumb. Maybe."  
  
"Finnick thinks the girl from Seven is going to surprise people."  
  
"The sick one?"  
  
"Yes. We talked to her for a few minutes. I told her I'd have my skirt cleaned and let her try it on. Is that all right?"  
  
"It's your skirt, you can lend it to anyone you want." He frowns. "Finnick likes her, huh?"  
  
"He thinks she's got something, anyway."  
  
"Hmm. Maybe I'll take a better look. What do you think?"  
  
"I don't know. I never think of them as… players. I only know that she seemed nice."  
  
"Kind of refreshing after Butterfly?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
He nods.  
  
I start to leave for the night -- there's no reason for me to be here before breakfast -- but I hear him say, "Effie?"  
  
I turn. "What?"  
  
"Give her space. Butterfly, I mean. The Seam's not an easy place to live, and she lives in one of the hardest parts of it. It's hard to look up through a broken roof and not hate people who don't have to worry about it."  
  
"Did you?"  
  
"Hate Capitolites?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Probably. I mean, in the abstract, anyway. I never hate anyone in particular until I've had a good chance to find out why I should. Seems like a waste of energy to me. It's not like I ever run out of the hate-able ones, anyway."  
  
I nod. "Good night, then."  
  
I get my things and go back to my apartment, where I sit on the couch for a long time. I send my skirt out to be cleaned and tell them to deliver it to the training center. I watch Mimi's movie. It's a romantic comedy about a young mother who falls in love with the man who runs the childcare center. I get a nasty shock when I realize the sculpture she died under was an artist's rendering of a scene where she plays in the park with the child.  
  
 _REAPED._  
  
I shudder it away and go to sleep. Training begins tomorrow, and for once, we may have a real contender.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During training, Effie and Butterfly reach an understanding, and River tries to make a new friend.

Butterfly manages something like civility at breakfast, and even asks me at one point if the way she's eating will be offensive if the cameras catch her in training. Since she's managing knife and fork and not gulping her juice, I tell her that it's fine. She's taken a black felt pen and drawn a feather on her forearm, so people will remember her from the parade.  
  
I doubt they'll remember it, since hardly anyone saw her and the cameras didn't focus on the feather, but I decide it would be gracious not to mention that.  
  
Haymitch gives his usual speech about not giving away too much at training. Butterfly allows that she's a good hand-to-hand fighter (Haymitch advises her to stay away from the inner district kids, no matter how good she thinks she is), and River, after much thought, says that he can run faster than most of the boys in his year, and that he's pretty strong. "Not the strongest, though," he admits sadly. "Jonadab Mellark's almost two years younger than me, and he can already pin everyone in recess. Bet he could win."  
  
Haymitch blanches, and I realize that the boy in question is one of Danny's. Fourteen, maybe fifteen. His name has been in the bowl for two years now. I wonder if the other two have aged in yet. I don't know how old they are.  
  
"Let's worry about _you_ right now," Haymitch says. "I've heard the Mellark boys are strong, but if a younger kid can beat you, let's keep you out of close contact."  
  
"What about… _allies?_ " Butterfly asks, putting a strange emphasis on the final word. "Who are our allies?"  
  
Haymitch looks at her steadily for a long time, then says, "You don't have allies yet. You have to make them at training. If you want my advice, I'd tell you to stick with District Eleven -- Chaff and Seeder are good mentors, and find a way to get materials to their tributes. District Three -- "  
  
" _Three?_ "  
  
"Yes, three. Beetee and Wiress will teach them to be clever, as much as they can. And according to Effie, Finnick Odair thinks the girl from Seven is worth allying with."  
  
"The sick one?" Butterfly doesn't argue, but she looks less than enthusiastic. "Anyone else? I mean, I don't watch the Games very carefully. Do we have any… traditional allies? The way the Careers are always allies?"  
  
"No. We don't often get far enough to have allies."  
  
"Did you have any? I mean, other than the merchant girl."  
  
"Eleven and Three," Haymitch says. "Though we never managed to meet up. Luckily, we'd signed some papers before the Games, so the Gamemakers knew we were allies."  
  
I raise my eyebrow. The fiction that Haymitch had just missed a connection with planned allies is a more or less open lie, and I wonder why he bothers to perpetuate it at this late date.  
  
He shrugs. I remind him that he has to meet with his fan club at the library this morning, because the president, Erastus, has managed to bring together several popular (and wealthy) authors who might sponsor us, in order to finally get the book group he says he's always wanted. (Both tributes look shocked by this kind of activity.) Haymitch grumbles about how terrible the authors in question are, but he never turns down a library trip, which is why I told Erastus to hold the meeting there.  
  
We finish breakfast and I take the children downstairs for training. This isn't strictly necessary, but it's become my habit. Some take it in better grace than others. Butterfly barely tolerates it, and practically runs into the training room. She goes straight to Seeder's tribute, a pretty fourteen-year-old named Aster. River looks at me, wide-eyed. "It's okay to just run in like that?"  
  
"Of course it is. You find someone nice to train with."  
  
He looks around, holding the elevator door open. Johanna Mason is sitting miserably in a corner, looking like she's spent the night crying. River looks back at me. "You reckon she's nice?"  
  
"I'm sure she is. You go on over and ask her to practice with you. I bet she will."  
  
He takes a deep breath and goes over to her. She seems surprised that anyone's talking to her, but before the door closes, I see her start to show him how to light a fire.  
  
When I get back upstairs, most of the mentors and escorts -- along with a few stylists -- are in the lounge, watching the silent screens where the camera feeds come in. Jack is sitting on the arm of a chair, watching intently.  
  
"Is she all right?" I ask.  
  
He looks over his shoulder. "She'll be all right with him. She had a brother like him -- you know…" Jack fumbles for a minute. "Not entirely… Well, they didn't give him complicated jobs. Johanna used to look after him. He died with their parents. Wildfire last fall."  
  
"The poor thing. She must miss them terribly. I know Haymitch misses his family."  
  
"Yeah, well. It's no wonder Jo got sick. She's been trying to log her father's quota all year."  
  
"She doesn't live in the community home?"  
  
"She likes the camps better. Can't say I blame her. The paper mill stinks." He shrugs. "I knew her a little bit from trips out to the camps -- I teach them to draw when I get too bored in Victors' Village and Linden's about ready to kill me -- and I liked her all right, but I sat up with her last night while they purged her. Got the whole life story. She's something."  
  
"Purged her?"  
  
"I don't know exactly how it works, but they put some kind of super-immunity boost in. It just about burned her up, her fever was so high, but it got the last of the flu out of her. A few people in her camp died this spring."  
  
"Oh, that's horrible!"  
  
"Yeah? Well, that's life in District Seven. Sometimes the flu comes, and sometimes, it takes good people with it when it leaves."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Anyway, they told her she'd pretty much be healthy until she dies. That's not what they said, of course. They said the super antibodies will last two months. But Jo's not stupid. She understands the subtext." He smiles. "Unless Finnick's right."  
  
"Where is Finnick?"  
  
"Breakfast date. Wouldn't want to miss any good socializing time, and how useful are mentors during training, anyway?" He grimaces.  
  
We watch our tributes train together for a few minutes, then Haymitch comes in from the library. He has some sponsorships for me to process -- I sit down at a nearby work station and listen in while I enter the information -- and grumbles that getting through the dreck he was supposed to have been reading was the hardest money he'd made. Then he looks at Jack, ashamed, and looks away.  
  
"Who'd you have to kiss up to?" Jack asks.  
  
"Arricinus Deasy and that woman who just goes by Tullia."  
  
Jack winces theatrically. "That's the one with the travel permit? The memoir about riding the rails after her lover left her?"  
  
"Learning about life and love from the simplicity of the rustic districts," Haymitch confirms. "She wanted me to talk about what it was like to be uncomplicated."  
  
"Did she actually make it all the way to Twelve?"  
  
"Did she actually make it _anywhere?_ I was pegging her for a fake."  
  
Jack snorts. "Oh, she made it to Seven. They let her stay in one of the empty houses in the Village. I don't know if that makes her not a fake, though. I'm pretty sure chapter fourteen is about Blight, not some odd district man she met in the woods."  
  
"Chapter fourteen?" He shudders. "That's a whole lot more than I needed to know about Blight. What the hell is he thinking?"  
  
"No idea. He pretty much leaves me alone." Jack nods to the screen. "Looks like we might be allies, if I can get Jo to keep going along with it."  
  
"I'd sure appreciate it. I don't think River's ready to go it alone. Should we get Finnick? He likes her."  
  
Jack considers it, then shakes his head. "Much as I'd like to get Finnick and his money on board, his tribute's the usual Career idiot."  
  
"Miss Trinket?" someone says from behind me.  
  
I look up from my work. A Dreams runner is standing by my table with a dry cleaning bag. I pay him and check my skirt, then hand it to Jack.  
  
He looks at it. "Not really my style, Effie."  
  
"It's for Johanna," I tell him. "I told her she could try it on and see for herself that it's not terribly hot or uncomfortable."  
  
"You're loaning my tribute a Maxentius?" He looks at Haymitch. "Can we trade escorts? They're still giving us grumpy men because of Blight. It's like having you for an escort."  
  
"Last thing I need is another me on my team," Haymitch says. "And you'll take Effie over my dead body."  
  
Jack laughs. "I'll take this upstairs. I have to clean up for a lunch date anyway."  
  
He disappears, and Haymitch sits down in his place. "Not much money from the authors, I'm afraid."  
  
"It's some," I say. "And we have your usual promises for after the Cornucopia. Miss Buttery called last week."  
  
"We haven't heard from her in a while. How is she?"  
  
"She's well. She'd love a visit, though."  
  
"Sure." He watches Butterfly on another screen. Against at least three counts of his usual advice, she's sparring at her best level in front of the inner district kids (it's a flat out fist fight with one of the trainers), and by the looks of it, she's picked a fight with the girl from Two.  
  
"Were _any_ of the authors any good?" I ask.  
  
"Money-wise?"  
  
"Book-wise. You must like _something_."  
  
He reaches into a satchel I bought him just for the occasion and pulls out a shiny paperback. On the cover, there are two rocks that seem to be spinning around each other. A third rock is hurtling toward them. The title, _Shattering Janus_ , means nothing to me. "Do you like science fiction?" he asks.  
  
"I haven't read any."  
  
"I don't read much of the stuff, but at least it's different. Erastus wrote it. He was bragging about his research, too. Binary planets. I know absolutely nothing about that, so that'll be new, at least."  
  
"Can I read it when you're finished? I do a lot of business with Erastus. I think it would make him happy."  
  
"By all means, keep the fan club happy." He rolls his eyes, pulls a second copy out of the bag, and tosses it to me. "He sent one over for you. Wait until you meet the rugged hero's peppy love interest."  
  
I put it in my purse.  
  
We watch Butterfly for a while. She actually does manage to win her training fight, knocking the trainer out of the ring and onto the floor. She looks pleased with herself. The District Two girl says something that looks snide, then climbs into the ring with a fresh trainer.  
  
Johanna turns out to be willing to make an alliance with River, who can talk about nothing else back at the apartment. Butterfly has little patience with it, since Johanna hasn't won anyone's respect in training, mostly sticking to the survival stations and failing at anything else she's tried.  
  
"She's just getting past a pretty nasty medical procedure," I tell her. "She may still be having side effects."  
  
"Whose side are you on?"  
  
"Effie's on your side," Haymitch says. "That doesn't mean she can't respect the other tributes, too."  
  
"She doesn't say anything good about us."  
  
"You haven't given her much reason to."  
  
"You fought well today," I say. "We saw you."  
  
"Which was exactly what I told you not to do," Haymitch grumbles.  
  
I don't look away from Butterfly. "Haymitch, let it go."  
  
He looks up at me sharply, then nods. "Fine. I'll let it go. I guess it's okay that they saw it. But you do what I say in the arena. You stay away from the Cornucopia. Have we got a deal? You do what you want in training, but do that for me when you get there."  
  
Butterfly considers it. "What about our allies?"  
  
"They should stay away, too. You want to put in a request for an ally? Or do you want to stick with River and Johanna?"  
  
"Aster," Butterfly says. "Aster's good, and maybe her district partner… I can't remember his name. They don't make us say each other's names much, and I… I'm not good with names."  
  
"Sorrel," River says. Butterfly looks at him, surprised, and he says, "I know names pretty good. I could say _everyone's_ name. There's Shimmer and Silver from One, and Antony and Jacoba from two, and --"  
  
"Fine, you know everyone," Butterfly says. "How come you can remember that?"  
  
He shrugs. "Always did do pretty well with people. Shimmer's not nice, though. She called me names. Johanna said she wasn't allowed to do that, but we're not allowed to fight in training."  
  
Haymitch looks up sharply at this, but says nothing about it. "I'll talk to Chaff and Seeder. They usually tell their tributes to split up -- to avoid a conflict within the district -- but we'll see. Sometimes they work together. I'd love to work with both of them."  
  
While River and Butterfly are training the next day, Haymitch meets with the other mentors. Jack and Chaff and Seeder, of course, are there, but so are the two District Six mentors, Beetee and Wiress, and Woof and Cecelia. Apparently, their tributes have expressed some interest in allying with Butterfly, or at least that's what he tells me when I ask. I end up taking several of the more routine sponsor meetings. Most of the sponsors are all right with this. They think he's planning something spectacular. I'm able to convince a few that Butterfly has a lot of fire, though most still prefer River.  
  
The third day of training, as usual, is cut in half, with the morning for last minute training and the afternoon for evaluations. River manages to get a Six somehow. Butterfly manages to defeat two trainers in hand to hand, and gets a nine. Johanna, confounding Finnick's expectations early on, is given a three. Jack says that she froze up during her evaluation -- went into a coughing fit and couldn't recover. Nothing is supposed to be known of the evaluations, but the late night comedians decide she started crying as her talent and run with it. There's great merriment on the street the next day, and an a capella group calling itself the Weeping Lumberjacks performs just outside the gate to Games Headquarters. I see them as I leave for the night. Looking up, I can tell that they will be in plain view of the Training Center apartments, should Johanna choose to look out her window.  
  
Reporters catch me on the way out, and ask me about Twelve's tributes. Nine is an incredibly good score, certainly among the leaders this year. I tell them that Butterfly is strong and brave, and that she doesn't give an inch in a fight.  
  
The next morning when I arrive at the apartment to start the interview training, I find Butterfly sitting in the couch, watching this on television.  
  
She looks up at me, confused. "Um.. thanks," she says.  
  
"You're welcome." I head for the kitchen to order up breakfast.  
  
"I don't understand you."  
  
I turn. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, you seem all right." She looks at my outfit, a pre-fall creation from Philippa, which is made of organic soilcloth. "Clothes aside. That's a seriously weird dress."  
  
"It has fast growing seeds in it. By the end of the day, it will be one of a kind."  
  
"Weird," she repeats, then sighs. "It's just, you don't have to work for the Games."  
  
"I'm sorry?"  
  
"Haymitch is stuck with it, and he hates it. I get that. But you don't have to work for the Games. You could do anything, and you _decided_ to work for the Games, and call kids' names, and bring us here. Everyone you call dies, and you don't quit. But you seem all right. I don't get it."  
  
"Oh. I see." I sit down. "Did Haymitch tell you about his last escort?"  
  
"People still tell stories. He used to call the families and make fun of the tributes after they died."  
  
"Exactly." I think about it. "Someone is always going to call the names. Someone has to. If it's not me, it'll be someone else. It's everything that comes after that matters to me."  
  
"Oh." She watches television for a few minutes, then says, "Everyone says that people get reaped if they cause trouble. Did they tell you to call me because my daddy got in a fight with the mine boss?"  
  
"No, honey. I've never been told to reap anyone in particular. I can't even imagine how they'd make something like that work. I just reach in the bowl and pull out the card that comes into my hand."  
  
"Then it's not because we're in trouble? It's not because my parents annoyed the wrong people?"  
  
I'm not sure how to answer this. I know about the district certainty that the reapings are rigged, and a part of me would love to simply debunk the idea -- among other things, it doesn't speak very well of me. But there's something in the way Butterfly is asking the question, something about the lost sound in her voice, and I understand. It gives them a sense of control, even where there is none. Being reaped becomes an act of rebellion, or an act, at least, of recognition that they've caused trouble. It proves to them that something they or their parents have done has been so powerful that it's caught the attention of the government and the Gamemakers.  
  
I think of Haymitch dismissing their window-breaking and slogan-writing as "calling each other rebels."  
  
It's all they can do. And to tell her that I doubt the Capitol even noticed a tiny disruption like that would be devastating. She needs to believe that what she's done is important.  
  
"All I can say," I tell her, "is that I've never been told to pull a name."  
  
She nods vaguely. "Do you even care whose names you pull?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "I mean, are you like River? Do you remember them? I don't remember who got reaped last year! I honestly don't. Is anyone going to remember me?"  
  
"It was Moss Bullard and Della Farragut," I tell her. "Moss told me that he loved the time of year when the snow and ice start to melt, and he can hear rivers cracking out in the woods across the fence at night. Della had a boyfriend named Dale, and she thought their names sounded too silly together to be a couple. I remember them. Haymitch remembers them. And if you don't win, I'll remember you."  
  
"I'm guessing not real nicely."  
  
"I'll think of you every time a designer comes up with something too silly to wear."  
  
She smiles wanly. "Is there _anything_ too silly for you to wear?"  
  
"Mood dresses," I say. "They change color based on what mood you're in. An actress wore one on a late night show, and it told everyone exactly how she was feeling about the host. It wasn't flowers and moonlight. She never did live that down."  
  
She laughs, and seems surprised by it. "Reckon if you wore a dress like that around Haymitch -- or if he had trousers that did that -- there wouldn't be any secrets."  
  
"There aren't any," I tell her. "But that's private. Which is the point."  
  
"I can see that. I don't think I'd want to know what a man's trousers have to say, anyway."  
  
"It's usually not that hard to spot. even without mood cloth."  
  
When Haymitch and River come down, we don't tell them what we're laughing about.  
  
Both of the kids are relatively cooperative about the interviews. Butterfly gets surly again when I put her in heels, but Therinus won't budge on the dress, which needs them. I try a few different pairs and finally get one that she can balance in. Thankfully, heavy block heels are part of the season's repertoire. With River, it's just a question of getting him not to fidget. I have his preps re-shave his head so that he doesn't have any stubble, but I also get Therinus to agree to a low, slouchy hat for him. He's very fond of it. I hope he doesn't forget what he's supposed to be doing and start playing with it on stage, since he spends much of the prep time doing it.  
  
We get word around supper time that the interviews have been moved to mid-afternoon, instead of their usual evening spot, which sends the stylists and prep teams into a panic. The children have to be pulled out of bed before sunrise to have everything done.  
  
"Maybe they'll at least be able to get to sleep early," I suggest.  
  
"The night before the arena?" Haymitch says. "Not likely. I don't know how any of us sleep."  
  
We all gather in the lobby of the Training Center at two-thirty. Butterfly is in a floor length gown studded with shimmering onyx. It has a high, boned collar that comes up around her face like wings. ("Like _butterfly_ wings!" Therinus announces, thrilled by his brilliance.) River is in a black suit that, for some reason, has glowing silver buttons. He realizes that they turn on and off when he twists them, and Haymitch and I both have to stop him from playing with them several times. (It doesn't help. He spends the vast majority of the interview program turning the lights on and off. Luckily, the Gamemakers decide not to air this.)  
  
The other stylists have done nicely. The inner district tributes are all stunning, though their interviews are as boring as ever. Finnick's tribute, Keefe, has crossed the line from confident to bombastic (Finnick looks very frustrated with him). In District Seven, Johanna looks a little stronger than she did at the parade, but Jack says the other tributes were tormenting her about her low score in the lobby, and at some point, she started to cry. By the time Caesar reaches her, her mascara has run badly, which spoils the effect of the stunning green dress they have her in.  
  
"And here is Johanna Mason, of District Seven!" he says, leading her forward. "I hear you've already beat one fearsome opponent -- the flu!"  
  
She smiles shakily. "Well, that was with a little help."  
  
"Oh, I know! I had a purge done last year. I was off my feet for days, but here you are, strong and steady!"  
  
"I guess we'll see, won't we?"  
  
"Tell me, Johanna… have you had a chance to enjoy anything?"  
  
"I got to wear a Maxentius Maxim to dinner," she says, and waves. "It looks uncomfortable, but it's not at all. I wore it all evening and had Jack take my picture in it. And I tried on shoes that had live plants in the heels."  
  
"Oh, I've seen those."  
  
"Those aren't as comfortable. But you water the plants by walking through misters, and that's kind of fun…"  
  
He keeps her talking about clothes for all three minutes, and doesn't mention her running makeup at all, though I'm sure everyone can see it. Unfortunately, in the middle of the pack, her words won't be remembered at all -- not that they were especially wonderful -- and the producers will certainly pay attention to the evidence of her crying in recaps, since it will provide continuity with her reaping.  
  
In District Nine, Philippa has created lovely looks from this year's plant-based fashions, which suit the district's industry. The dress the girl, Dottie, is in has grown a beautiful red flower on her shoulder.  
  
Since Butterfly has managed to get an alliance with both District Eleven tributes, they all praise each other heavily. Aster looks lovely in a shimmering white dress, and Sorrel certainly gains a few fans among the teenage girls.  
  
Haymitch watches Butterfly nervously the whole time she's speaking, but Caesar guides her well, asking her questions about her "unusual" reaping outfit (Butterfly talks about not having anything else, rather than being defiant), and what she enjoys at home. He doesn't give her any window to talk about hating the Capitol, which is probably wise.  
  
River is earnest and likeable. It's easy to tell that he's not very bright, but he's charming, and Caesar jokes with him about how he also sometimes likes to turn the lights on his suit on and off. He actually does this in front of the cameras, which makes River laugh.  
  
"And you have an ally as well," Caesar says.  
  
"Oh, yes. My best friend now," River tells him. "Miss Johanna Mason from District Seven. She's wonderful, and very smart."  
  
There's an audible "Aw" from the crowd.  
  
Haymitch frowns, but doesn't say anything.  
  
"Okay," he says as the interviews close up. "We'll get them back upstairs, and I want to go over a few more things with Butterfly --"  
  
But he doesn’t get a chance.  
  
As soon as the cameras cut out, Games security comes out on stage, surrounding the tributes.  
  
"What's going on?" I ask.  
  
"No idea."  
  
The new head Gamemaker, a woman named Titania Dori, takes Caesar's microphone. "Don't be alarmed," she says, grinning broadly. "We have a very special arena this year, and it's quite a trip. Our tributes will be leaving immediately to start their long journey. This year, we've made sure their journey will be as luxurious as their stay here in the Capitol! Happy Hunger Games!"  
  
With that, she leaves the stage.  
  
The tributes are led out through a corridor that none of the mentors can reach, and a moment later, we see six hovercrafts rise up into the sky.  
  
Before we can even get back to the apartment, they're gone.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the tributes are en route, the Games staff waits nervously... with good reason, as they find out when the Games begin, in an all natural arena, complete with dangers even the Gamemakers can't control.

No one knows what to do.  
  
Generally, after the interviews, it's late. Haymitch and I take the tributes back to the apartment, and we watch the interview recaps, more to fill their hours than to accomplish anything. By the time the recaps are over, it's reasonable to send them to bed. Haymitch is probably right that they don't sleep, but at least it's some time in private to think.  
  
This year, it's five o'clock, and they're gone. There's a special on television about their journey, which is on luxury hovercrafts. They'll get gourmet meals, just as though they were here. They will have comfortable sleeping berths. There are two districts per craft -- Butterfly and River will be traveling with District Eleven. Captains are able to check in for a little while, but until they get landside, where there's a cabled connection for the Games, they won't be able to broadcast.  
  
"Once," Claudius tells us, "signals were able to bounce around the curve of the earth by hitting satellites high in the sky. Now, we must rely on cables, but this arena has been in the works for years. We still have the technology to bring you the Games live. It's actually old technology, used in early Games…"  
  
Here, he goes into a history of the Games when they were played in the empty world outside Panem, before they perfected created biomes. The first Games were played in a vast jungle in South America, and they realized the trouble they would have in broadcasting. That year, there were only highlights, delivered from the site in high speed hovercrafts to a Capitol station. The next two years, they stuck close to home, using a rugged seashore northeast of District Twelve, and a hard-packed desert to the west of District Three. During those years, they re-laid cables beneath the oceans and built towers across islands, making it possible to re-visit faraway sites with wild visuals. They went to a desert in Africa with strange, shifting sands and fragile glass sculptures that were created by bombings during the Catastrophes. They visited a volcanic island surrounded by an impossibly blue sea. In Mags's year, they found a high, cold plateau, overrun by wild horses. (In the Viewing Center, I am watching with Mags, who gripes that it was another desert, for all their talk about variety; everyone was chasing down water.)  
  
"Where will we find ourselves this year, as the Games return to their far-flung roots? Only the Gamemakers know for now!"  
  
Haymitch rolls his eyes. "I wonder who talked them into this."  
  
"I wonder if someone really is planning to start another district," Jack says. "Somewhere across the sea. District Fourteen: Tourism."  
  
"Who'd go?" I ask.  
  
Finnick raises his hand. "Sign me up. I'll host tours once a year, put out my best face, then spend the rest of the time keeping the rosebushes trimmed, and fishing for food."  
  
"What about your mother?" Mags asks.  
  
"Well, that would be the deal for doing the tours. Mom comes with me. With an exoneration. And you, of course. That's all I need." He thinks about it. "Maybe Haymitch. You want to come? It'll be the victors' district. We'll all host tours."  
  
"Nobody wants to see me on vacation."  
  
The mentors continue in this vein for a while. I suppose to the outside, it would look callous to joke and laugh at the moment, but I know them. It's nervous prattle, something to fill the hours, just like the specials they're airing on television -- the old Games from far away, tours of the luxury hovercrafts, even a history program about the Catastrophes. _Something_ has to fill the time.  
  
Meanwhile, the stylists have gone with their tributes to prepare them at the arena, but the prep teams are milling around nervously. I see Venia, our girl's hairdresser, and talk to her for a while, mainly complimenting her on how well she handled Butterfly's hair. I notice a young man with the District Ten contingent. He looks familiar, but it's almost ten o'clock at night before I realize where I've seen him. He was once the young boy who swept up Philippa's studios so he could study design with her.  
  
I go over to him. "You're not with Philippa's prep team?"  
  
"She didn't have an opening after I finished design school. She got me in with Ten, though." He smiles. "I don’t think she ever introduced us. I'm Cinna Barrett."  
  
"Effie Trinket. What… are you apprenticed to Urban?"  
  
"No. I'm just making ends meet. I'm showing my first collection under my own label this spring, but for now I'm the District Ten skin guy. This is my third year, but… you know. They don't like to show the prep teams. Everyone's just magically done up."  
  
"You have a design degree, and he doesn’t even have you sewing?"  
  
"Not that he knows about." Cinna grins, then shrugs. "He always wants to send them out in these awful clothes that don't move at all. I re-do them whenever I can get my hands on them. He never notices."  
  
"Why do you do it?"  
  
He thinks about it. "My first year on prep, I was friends with my tribute. He was a nice guy. He couldn't move in the suit Urban had him in, so I snuck in and fixed it. I just figure, why make them uncomfortable on top of everything else, when they don't have to be?"  
  
"Careful -- Haymitch will want you in Twelve if you start talking like that."  
  
Cinna looks over at the table where Haymitch and the others are now arguing about where the next district should be. Haymitch has apparently sent a runner for a few atlases, and is going back and forth between them. "Terrifying," he says.  
  
"You have no idea."  
  
"Actually, I do," he says. "I've talked to Plutarch Heavensbee a little bit -- the Gamemaker?"  
  
"I know him."  
  
Cinna narrows his eyes at me and evaluates me, then shrugs. "He likes Haymitch Abernathy a lot. Says he's an interesting guy. Just for future reference, I wouldn't mind working for District Twelve, if anyone were to ever, say, retire."  
  
"I don't think Twelve has ever been anyone's first choice before."  
  
"It probably doesn't matter. If I don't get a smash collection pretty soon, they won't hire me as a Games stylist anyway. That's why Plutarch hasn't introduced me."  
  
"Can I see your sketches?"  
  
He brightens at this prospect, and runs off to get them. The fashions he shows me when he gets back are both strange and simple. I would feel naked in a lot of them even though I've worn things that show more skin. These just seem to skim the body, like air that's somehow turned to fabric around a woman's body, or water poured over it.  
  
He's pleased with this description. He calls the collection "Elementals." He says that he's been working with a young girl from District Three who got a scholarship for her amazing fabrics. "I was on the judging committee for the scholarship contest," he says. "Don't tell the fashion institute, but I really pushed for her just because I want to poach her as soon as she graduates."  
  
His drawings are quite lovely, even if I don't know what to make of the clothes. They seem alive on the pages. Maybe he can find a niche market. Nothing looks spectacular enough for the Games, but I don't tell him so.  
  
We run out of conversation around midnight, when the Gamemakers start to air recaps of everything that's come so far in these Games. They ignore Butterfly studiously, and mock Johanna's tears.  
  
We get word that the tributes will arrive at the arena at the usual time tomorrow morning, and everyone drifts up to the apartments. I go home.  
  
Sleeping doesn't seem to be on the table. I don't know why it makes such a difference that River and Butterfly are on a hovercraft instead of in their rooms. I wouldn't have seen them after this anyway. But I keep thinking of poor River, trying in his muddled way to figure out how he's going to sleep in the middle of the sky. I hope Butterfly's alliance isn't excluding him. Maybe he can bring Johanna to them, and all five of them can work together.  
  
At any rate, I toss and turn in the dark for half an hour before giving it up as a bad job. The increasingly desperate filler programming doesn't help. I can't think of anything else to do, so I finally pull out the book Erastus wrote, _Shattering Janus_. I stare at the cover, at the two rocks that seem to be glaring warily at each other, at the other one that's hurtling toward them.  
  
I start to read. Most of it, I can't make heads or tails of. The rocks are apparently supposed to be planets. There's a lot of technical language that I don't catch, but the gist of the plot seems to be that the two planets, which are "tidally locked" and spinning around a sun, are in a state of constant war, but now are threatened by an "asteroid," which is going to severely damage one of them, and possibly knock both of them out of their constant orbit. It's apparently a major catastrophe.  
  
The hero is from the poor planet that's about to be hit, and he's reluctantly working with a woman from the rich planet. That part is the same as any romance novel I've read, except with more macho posturing, and a lot more philosophical conversation about symbiosis than I'd expect to find. The love scenes, when they appear, are short and mechanical, and the point of them seems to be to make the heroine stop arguing with the hero's plan for solving the asteroid problem. Since I don't understand the plan -- or the problem, really -- I have no idea whether or not she _should_ argue with it. I assume she probably should. Haymitch says it's better to figure out where you can poke holes in a plan before you try implementing it (if you really have to go with a plan, anyway; he generally doesn't approve of them in survival situations). The book doesn't seem to subscribe to that philosophy. I fall asleep before they actually do anything.  
  
I dream about two worlds, revolving around each other in an angry dance, both waiting for inevitable destruction. In my dream, the hero looks like Haymitch, and he keeps declaring, "There has to be a way!" Only every time he tries something, one of the tributes we've lost appears, and he starts drinking. I try to comfort him, but I seem to be mechanical, and he says I should feel bad, anyway.  
  
I wake up in the morning feeling like I never went to sleep, and spend the escorts' meeting drinking strong coffee. The only new piece of information is that, due to the arena's distance this year, we will only be able to get materials listed in the gift book. If it's not in the book, it's not possible.  
  
Haymitch doesn't seem too disturbed by the news. He's been going through the list, and he says it's reasonably inclusive. He expects it may be a bit cooler than here but nothing too cold. Water bottles are available, but may not be necessary, given the rain protection that's available. There are a handful of weapons, so tributes won't have to depend on the Cornucopia if they have sponsors. If it turns out he's right about the water (and if she doesn't rush the Cornucopia), he thinks we can swing a slingshot for Butterfly. He and Jack are going to go in for an axe for Johanna. She should be able to teach River how to use it so they can keep watch.  
  
"Axes aren't usual, are they?" Jack asks. "I don't remember seeing one in the weapons pile. I'd have gone for that."  
  
"Lumber?" Haymitch suggests. "An axe _could_ mean a lot of tree clearing."  
  
"With those little axes? Let's hope not."  
  
They're interrupted by the Games anthem, this year played on a kind of mournful string instrument. The arena map comes up, surrounded by panoramic views of the arena itself.  
  
Haymitch swears under his breath, but I'm not sure why -- it's a woodland arena, which is usually good for our tributes, and it has a natural river included beneath the forcefield. The weather seems temperate in the scenes they're showing underneath the music -- a sort of irregular land, with small hillocks covered in vines and leaves. A few wide paths wind among the trees.  
  
"They're buildings," Haymitch says. "And roads. It's a city. Or what's left of one."  
  
The main view switches to the tributes' tubes. This year, they're following the girl from Four, who has the unlikely name of "Collie." She rises up into the green world above, and I see the other tributes blinking in the sunlight. Butterfly is two spaces down from her. The Cornucopia is set at a bend in the river, and the tributes are in a semi-circle around it.  
  
The gong sounds.  
  
Butterfly and the two tributes from Eleven do as they were told and run fast. River steps off his platform and looks around, confused, until Johanna actually tackles him out of the way and sweeps him off into the dark woods.  
  
The battle at the Cornucopia is the same as ever -- bloody and brutal. It leaves six tributes dead. Both of the kids from Eight, the boys from Five and Three, the girls from Six and Ten. The inner district alliance jokes about keeping the gender balance even while they claim the weapons and supplies. The other tributes who survived run.  
  
"Welcome to the Sixty-Ninth Annual Hunger Games!" Claudius says, and his face appears in a split screen. "What an opening! And what an arena! This year, the Gamemakers have chosen to use a natural arena, in the ruins of a city in what was once called the Black Forest. Doesn't it sound like a fairy tale? But make no mistake -- the ruins of Europe aren't for the faint of heart. While there are natural resources, there are also natural dangers. Who can manage a totally natural environment? Who will be left ruined along with the city? Who do the odds favor?"  
  
"They've lost their damned minds," Haymitch says. "A natural environment? Are they serious?"  
  
"What's wrong with a natural environment?" I ask  
  
"Mother Nature makes the Gamemakers look like amateurs. Are they really arrogant enough…" He shakes his head. "Of course they are. Never mind."  
  
"What's really going on?" Jack asks. "Natural arena… they just had to put up a forcefield and dig some tunnels. What did they switch it from?"  
  
Chaff leans over. "I'm sure it was always the plan. They never need to deviate for anything." He stares at Jack until Jack nods and agrees.  
  
"Europe was once a glorious land," Claudius tells us. "It was studded with castles and museums and great works of art. Some were rescued from the Catastrophes and brought here to Panem by the thousands of refugees who took shelter here during the in-gathering, but much of it is lost forever. Our broken city was in a nation called Germany. There was no great destruction of the land, though the Rhine river did flood at one point, and some kind of contagion ravaged the land. Not to worry, though! Our technicians have done thorough scans of the air and water, and found no remnants of the contagion.  
  
"Much of continental Europe is believed to have been destroyed by the vicious wars between its nations as the rising seas pushed the huge population inland… a sobering lesson about the cost of non-cooperation. Had they known the peace of Panem, built on our mutual trust and loyalty, perhaps we would have a friendly partner across the sea, instead of the wilderness that ranges across the continent.  
  
"But what a glorious wilderness it is! Our Gamemakers and their technicians have thoroughly explored the area around the arena…"  
  
As the tributes are now moving out and away from each other, the coverage cuts to footage of the Games technicians, setting up the arena and checking the sensors for signs of nearby human life (this is almost certainly scripted, as it looks like any number of movies about the in-gathering, right down to the dramatically tragic shake of the head, as no survivors are located). The location for the arena had to be scouted, and the footage they gathered of the broken world is striking. There is a small sea to the south of the continent, where we can see the vast volcanic crater left by the Flegrei eruption. Shallow seas and tiny, low-lying islands dot the northern ocean. In some places, they were able to see the roads and byways of countries now submerged. It is wild and beautiful, and I suspect this will be a popular tourist arena in years to come.  
  
When they return to the Games, they cut first to the inner district kids, who have claimed a good stretch along the river banks. Shimmer suggests that they go as far upstream as they can, then send poison downstream, but no one else thinks this is a good idea. Most want to get to hunting, but Finnick's tribute, Keefe, convinces them to get a virtual fortress built in their area instead, and they move on to cutting down trees.  
  
Meanwhile, Butterfly and the District Eleven tributes are deep in the woods. The map shows them a solid distance from the river, but they've found a calm pool, and are resting beside it. Butterfly seems to be allergic to something. She keeps scratching her arms.  
  
"I might just move in here," Aster says. "This is nicer than the orchards. There are cherry trees. I love cherries! I think I saw some pears while we were running, too." She scratches at her arm. "Wonder about the animals, though. This much food, there will be a lot of them."  
  
"I've sure heard _something_ shuffling," Butterfly says. "We should probably figure out what to do about weapons…"  
  
They continue talking about this, even as Haymitch orders a slingshot, and Chaff and Seeder get knives. The coverage hops around a little, catching up with Johanna and River, who are eating cherries and hiding in a deep hole (Haymitch groans and mutters something about "high ground"). The two kids from District Nine have joined up, and taken over a small stone building that is intact under the foliage and gives them a good view from up on its rise. A few small alliances are wandering, and one or two singletons seem to be hunting.  
  
Claudius is about to start more patter when he suddenly raises his hand to his earpiece and says, "We have developments from our outer district alliance!"  
  
They cut back to Butterfly's camp. There's no more talk of settling in and eating cherries. The kids have uncovered a nest of rats -- big ones. The parachute with Butterfly's slingshot and the two knives comes down, but it's too late for Sorrel. He's overrun by the nasty little things.  
  
Butterfly grabs the parachute and reaches blindly at the knife. She and Aster are able to kill about two dozen rats, but in the end, they have to run for a new hiding spot. The cannon goes off for Sorrel, and Chaff goes to call his parents.  
  
The girls stare at each other.  
  
"Mutts?" Butterfly asks.  
  
Aster stares back along the path, panting heavily. "I guess so. Sorrel -- he -- we need to --"  
  
"The cannon went off," Butterfly says. "I heard it." She digs at her arm, then wrinkles her nose. "Something bit me," she says.  
  
"Yeah, me, too. Nothing big, though. It's just itchy." Aster wipes at her face. "Sorrel… he's my friend…"  
  
"I know." Butterfly looks around. "We need to find shelter. You can do your mourning once we have it."  
  
They move on.  
  
There are no more deaths the first day. The tributes all look for shelter. There are more rats, but none in nests the size of the one Sorrel found. They settle in. The inner district kids go hunting, but come back with only food.  
  
There's a lot of coverage on the street of people who are fascinated with the arena. They love the natural setting, and many of them talk about expanding Panem. Quite a few are disturbed by the rats. The Gamemakers say they aren't mutts and can't be called back, but they are, after all, only rats. They're not going to make pointed attacks on people unless they're disturbed.  
  
"Natural animals," a Gamemaker named Jovian says, "will largely avoid humans, as we're bigger than they are and not a good risk to attack. The mutts we generally use have the physical structure and biology of animals for the most part, but grown around brains and central nervous systems which are computerized and connected to Games headquarters. _We_ could cause mutt rats to attack, but natural rats will not do so unless provoked."  
  
This seems to assuage people on the streets, who don't want to see another rat attack. Haymitch is less excited.  
  
"Rats are nasty, and they _will_ attack," he says. "And also… they could have called those squirrels off me with the click of a button. Apparently, it would have been all right for _me_ to be eaten by rodents."  
  
"The people didn't like that, either," Seeder says. "They thought it was disgusting."  
  
"I'm surprised it made the highlight reel."  
  
"The highlight reel doesn't show them eating your earlobe."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Over the next three days, there are only two deaths. The inner district kids manage to hunt down Ford Yazzie from Six, and Pense Charna from Three has the misfortune of successfully tracking the kids from District Nine. They are still in their little stone shelter. They don't allow him to leave it, and move his body far away so that anyone watching the claw come down for him can't follow it to their location.  
  
Johanna and River keep following trails, looking for shelter. They run into Raven Clemm from Five and ask if she'd like to join them, but she says that she can cry without coaching, and that's all Johanna's good for. They try to chase her, but neither of them seems able to really attack, even though Johanna now has an axe and River could break Raven in half without thinking twice about it (not that he would do so unless Johanna ordered him to). They finally call it a night when they find another ruined building and hide in the cellar hole. Johanna has to kill a rat, but it seems to be alone, at least.  
  
After they eat -- they cook the rat over a small fire and have some fruit from the trees -- River tells Johanna that she's good for many things other than crying. She catches food for them, and she always takes care of him, and he knows she always will.  
  
"I _can't_ ," she says. "Do you get that? I couldn't take care of my brother, and I'm probably going to screw up with you!" She turns away, and wipes her face.  
  
The crying is all that the main broadcast shows -- in the evening, for the recaps during mandatory viewing, they explicitly make it look like she's crying over being called a crybaby. Jack fumes.  
  
Meanwhile, Butterfly and Aster aren't doing much. Aster is having a hard time getting up to hunt, and Butterfly is complaining about a headache. A large, swollen area appears on the underside of her jaw. Aster gets one under her arm, then another on her neck. Their trackers report that they've both spiked fevers.  
  
Plutarch Heavensbee comes down and sits between Haymitch and Chaff. "We're not running this on the air," he says. "We don't know where this is coming from. We have antibiotics on the way, no charge. It's not supposed to be part of the arena."  
  
"Why not? Isn't it supposed to be 'natural'?" Haymitch asks.  
  
"We didn't know." Plutarch looks around. "We want to kill it as quickly as we can. It looks like… well, let's just say the rats themselves weren't the worst thing they came across. Right now, it's containable. We have sweepers we can send in after the rats, and once they're gone, it should be all right. But we have to keep this from going airborne. If it goes airborne, we have a real problem on our hands."  
  
"I already have a real problem," Haymitch says.  
  
The medicine is still on the way when both girls are huddled in the dark, crumbled remains of a building, unable to do much of anything. On the broadcast, all they say is that the girls are tired. They're shot in the shadows, so no one can see the swellings all over their bodies. The medicine still hasn't arrived when Aster slips away in the middle of the night. Butterfly is too weak to do anything for her.  
  
The inner district kids find Butterfly the next morning. The fierce fighter who challenged everything is gone, and the girl left behind is weak and feverish, malformed from the swollen glands all over her body.  
  
Keefe raises his sword and kills her without any fight. A spray of blood goes into the air.  
  
Keefe breathes it in.  
  
The plague is airborne.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the plague loose in the arena -- though the Gamemakers are trying to play it down -- the rules and expectations change quickly, and Johanna Mason goes from long shot to sure shot.

Keefe is ill within the day, complaining of aches and fever, starting to cough violently by night. Some of this can't be entirely hidden from the audience. Claudius writes it off as a "bug" that's going around.  
  
Haymitch, Jack, Chaff, and Seeder are called upstairs. Haymitch tells me that the Gamemakers think Plutarch "jumped the gun" by implying that it's plague. They say it's more likely that someone caught Johanna's flu before it was treated, and it's just running its course at an unfortunate time.  
  
"Is that what you think?"  
  
"I don't know. The flu can be nasty. Killed Danny's parents." He rubs his head. "I never read much about medicine. I hardly know anything other than miners' cough, and it's not that."  
  
"But -- "  
  
"Effie, they had papers with charts on them. Pictures of blood cells from Butterfly and Aster. They said flu. It could be flu. It could be little green aliens out of Erastus's book, for all I know about germs and microbiology."  
  
"But you're… well, _smart_ …"  
  
"Being smart doesn't mean I _know_ anything in particular, if I never bothered to learn it." He smiles. "My daddy said that once, when I told him I was smart enough to run the mines. I should probably learn about this now. The Gamemakers are probably already figuring out how to make it a controllable weapon for next year."  
  
"Do you want me to make a library run?"  
  
He shakes his head. "Even if I read everything and got to be a doctor in the next three days, I can't see it doing River any good, and it's already not done any good for Butterfly. They're going to cremate her. I don't know what I'll tell her parents."  
  
"She won't have a place in the cemetery?"  
  
"Oh, they'll bury the urn, I guess. And I'll sit with it on the train."  
  
"But what about what Plutarch said?"  
  
"They say he has a romantic imagination." Haymitch shrugs. "Something about how he has the vapors about it being Europe. I don't know. Maybe. He doesn’t know any more about medicine than I do."  
  
"But what do you _think?_ "  
  
"I think I don't like it when they're so forthcoming with information." He sighs. "But they might just have gotten caught with their pants down, if they missed the flu. I don't know."  
  
Whatever the real situation, it's downplayed in the broadcast. In the Viewing Center, where we have access to all of the cameras, we can see that Keefe is indeed very sick. The inner district group exiles him on the second day -- or maybe "abandons" is a better word, since they leave him behind rather than sending him away -- but I can tell that Shimmer and Antony aren't feeling well, either. Keefe is a tough kid, and Finnick gets him food and water to keep him alive for a little while, but he succumbs on the eleventh day of the Games. His face is covered with blood, and he looks like he's been in mortal combat.  
  
The audience is not enthusiastic about this. On the street, people complain loudly that the Games aren't fair if some of the tributes are sick at the start. Some demand that the tributes be isolated and purged, even if it means a pause in the Games, and the arena itself be sanitized.  
  
On the other hand, with the inner district kids weak, bettors are starting to place their money with the new alliances. Johanna's district partner, Ralph Sawyer, has teamed up with Hyrum Fife from ten. The inner districts split into two alliances, with the relatively healthy Collie, Silver, and Jacoba splitting off from Shimmer and Antony, who begin to cough within a day of Keefe's death. Dottie and Mayfield, from Nine, have staked out territory a good distance from the river, and joined up with Raven Clemm. None of them have had run-ins with rats or sick tributes.  
  
They're far apart now, and things get slow.  
  
River and Johanna take shelter in an old stone building. The roof is open to the sky in a lot of places, there are trees and dried leaves and vines wound around things, and a tall spire has broken off and now lies in the forest, but the walls seem strong, and provide them with some shelter. There's speculation about what it might have once been, and nervous talk about how ancient stone buildings seem to outlast modern architecture. Architects are called in. Most imply that this is the point -- modern architecture recognizes that nothing lasts forever, except the Capitol. "Yes," a man named Legatus says, laughing. "People once thought they could make flawed ideas immortal by building them in stone. We know now that buildings are just fashion. The only thing that lasts forever is a true idea. Modern architecture recognizes that, in order for an idea to remain alive, its emblems need to adapt to changing perceptions. The ancients never grasped that. That's why, when they disappeared, they disappeared forever. All they _had_ were monuments."  
  
River, for his part, is delighted with the place. It's lucky that no one is in hearing distance, because he discovers that he can create echoes when he sings. He has a lovely, bass register voice, and he spends an hour one day trying to make the echoes harmonize. Johanna tells him to stop, but she keeps guard the whole time, and no one seems to be alerted by the noise. The audience adores it. I start to field calls from sponsors who want to hear him sing more. There are breathless voices who want to know if he's as strong as he looks, too. I suppose the broadcast isn't really showing how childlike he is.  
  
The art that's going around certainly doesn't treat him as childlike. Most of it looks like romance novel covers. For the most part, he's pictured with Johanna, though the early fight with Raven has spurred a few with her. There's even one that shows him standing strong on a ridge while the two girls hide behind him, holding onto his arms. Finnick brings this one to us after he returns from a date. He hands it to Haymitch wordlessly, his lip curled in disgust.  
  
"I'm not arguing with it right now," Jack says. "These are mostly harmless -- romantics, not…" He looks at Finnick. "These aren't the _really_ friendly types."  
  
"I don't know. I have a good collection of pictures like that from my year. I still get them from time to time. I probably got handed a hundred of the damned things on my Victory Tour."  
  
"So did I," Jack says. "But they're not the kind I'm worrying about. Come on. You're not squiring around a legion of artists, and neither am I."  
  
Finnick -- who has no real reason to be here since Keefe's death, and so, as usual, decides to hang around Haymitch -- flops down in an easy chair. "Money's coming in, huh?"  
  
"By the bucket," Jack admits. "I don't even know what to buy her. Haymitch and I already sent them blankets and a big meal."  
  
"Big meals wear off. They'll probably need another eventually."  
  
"Not until they bury the trash from the first one," Haymitch says. "I'll send them bread if one of them decides to stop leaving a trail any six year old could follow."  
  
"There's no one nearby," I tell him. "And the closest ones are still sick."  
  
"They've had medicine. That could change. And they're staying in a huge landmark that just screams, 'Look in here.'"  
  
Finnick shakes his head. "Get some dinner, Haymitch. Take Effie. I'll watch your station."  
  
Haymitch looks ready to argue, but it's been a day or so since he last ate, and, though no one talks about it, almost two weeks since his last drink, which isn't good for his mood with or without medicine. I guess he realizes he's being grouchy to us. He nods and stands up. "You want to come, Effie?"  
  
I go to dinner with him. I insist on someplace public, where he's not allowed to talk about the behind-the-scenes work of the Games. We talk about Erastus's book. I'm glad that he's as baffled by some of it as I am.  
  
"Do you think we should go back to space?" I ask him while we wait for the valet to come back with my wrap. "Settle some strange planet with tidal locking and asteroids?"  
  
He takes my wrap and puts it over my shoulder. "I think we're not even ready for the rest of Earth," he says.  
  
We go outside and start walking back toward Games headquarters. It's a cool, misty night, and the moon is full and hazy. People are running around on the street, going to the various parties, but we don't take much notice of them. The smell of silver sagebrush is coming down from the mountainsides. If we were in a romance novel, this would be the kind of night that we'd end up at my place, after our years of dithering on the subject. Since we're not, we talk about colonies and new districts and the vast, empty world around us. The closest we come to moonlight and roses is Haymitch bringing up our population dearth and how unlikely it's starting to seem that either of us is going to do anything to solve the problem.  
  
"Does it ever strike you as crazy?" he asks as we go through the gate into the compound.  
  
"Does what?"  
  
"All of it. The human race. I sometimes think we deserve to die out."  
  
"I thought you always thought that."  
  
"Yeah, well, don't tell anyone, but sometimes I'm tempted to let us live. Just out of spite."  
  
"I'll keep it to myself." I lead the way back to the Viewing Center. I suppose I could go home, but I can't think of any good reason to. "Is that why you still don't have a family? Because you think humans deserve to die?"  
  
"No. I don't have a family because I don't ever want to hear you calling them up at the damned reaping." He laughs humorlessly. "Of course, I'd probably manage to accidentally kill a kid drunk anyway."  
  
"No, you wouldn't. You sober up when people need you."  
  
"I sober up -- with a lot of chemical help -- for a few weeks every year. You don't know me the rest of the time."  
  
"I've seen you drunk."  
  
"Yeah. But you think that's the strange thing. Everyone else knows that's normal. _This_ is the strange thing."  
  
"I don't believe that."  
  
"Like I said -- you don't know me most of the year."  
  
"I do know you. You're more than you think you are, Haymitch."  
  
We go back in. Nothing else happens that night, or the next day.  
  
There are plenty of natural dangers in the arena, of course. There are wild pigs with sharp tusks, roaming wolves, and a kind of sharp-clawed animal with a long, striped white nose. One of these takes a swipe or two at River, but he brains it with a rock, and it becomes a large dinner. Most of the time, the tributes just run these animals off, though Raven and the kids from Nine have to run for shelter from the wolves one night. Mutt wolves would keep at it until they were scared off, but the real ones tire of the siege by morning, and go off to hunt easier prey.  
  
It's not enough to fill the hours, so Caesar calls in every commentator he can find to talk about the Catastrophes, the history of the wars that swept back and forth across the huge land mass in Europe and Asia and Africa, the final seismic crack-ups that destroyed so much of the history after devastating weapons were detonated deep in the earth. He even brings in people to talk about ancient Europe, when a city called Rome grew to encompass the known world, something like a proto-Capitol. Caesar points out that his own name, and many of the names on the Capitol's approved name list, originated in Rome.  
  
He doesn't discuss what might have become of it, just glossing forward a few centuries to the dominance of other nations, and ultimately, the westward shift of power, until the center of world authority came here, to the Capitol. (Haymitch rolls his eyes hugely at this.)  
  
They openly send medicine to Shimmer and Antony, and both seem to rally, at least a little bit. They're weak, but they're able to eat the gifts people send them. The audience is satisfied that the Gamemakers are trying to make the odds a bit fairer.  
  
We go six days without a death. People are wondering if it's some kind of Games record, and it might well be, though the Gamemakers don't comment.  
  
Ralph and Hyrum spot Shimmer and Antony a week after Keefe's death. Ralph is keen to attack them, since they still seem weak. Hyrum insists on waiting, trying to figure out whether or not they're faking. On the evening of the second day, Shimmer answers the question. She relapses very suddenly, coughing harshly and gasping for breath. Antony runs from her before she dies, but he's wheezing by morning. Ralph charges at him just after dawn.  
  
Whether it's old training kicking in or just instinct, Antony lurches at Ralph and buries a knife in his neck. Hyrum, who was only a few steps behind, steps back in fear.  
  
Antony looks up. "Help me," he gasps. "Please. It hurts to breathe."  
  
"I don't know…" Hyrum looks around. "They should send you medicine. Your sponsors. They should. I bet you have more than I do."  
  
Antony grabs him. " _Please._ Help me."  
  
He falls to his knees, then goes unconscious. Hyrum watches him warily for an hour, but he never wakes up. The cannon goes off at sunset.  
  
The next morning, Hyrum begins to cough. In the inner district alliance, Silver has started to develop the same swellings that Butterfly and Aster had. Jacoba and Collie turn him out, and he runs into Hyrum along the river bank. Neither seems well enough to fight. They limp off together.  
  
Coverage goes to Dottie, Mayfield, and Raven for a little while. They are the clear favorites to win now. Jacoba and Collie aren't sick yet, but with the illness seeming to follow the inner district kids around, people have discounted them. Hyrum and Silver are almost certainly dying. River and Johanna are well loved by Haymitch's crew of sentimental older women, but entirely dismissed by serious bettors, and mocked by the comedians as the simpleton and the crybaby. Even the other tributes assume she's disposable, probably starving to death because she's too upset to hunt.  
  
At dawn, River is keeping watch from high on the wall of the building he and Johanna are hiding in. He spots Hyrum and Silver struggling along.  
  
Haymitch and Jack both scream at him not to go help, but he's halfway around the world. Johanna would know better, but she's sleeping in relative comfort in a sheltered corner of the ruin. He looks at her fondly, then goes down to get them. Haymitch snaps at me to keep an eye on the phone, then bolts up to the Gamemakers.  
  
By the time Johanna is awake, River has settled the other two in a little alcove, beside a small, shattered pillar. He's letting them drink from a silver bowl he's found buried in the dirt, and has wrapped them both up in his blanket.  
  
Johanna looks at them, eyes wide, and beckons to River. "They're sick," she whispers to him.  
  
"I thought we could take care of them. Like you take care of me."  
  
"We don't have anything to help them with. They need to leave before we get sick."  
  
He looks down. "I was… I just wanted to help."  
  
"I know, but River, they're _sick_." She looks up at the sky. The broadcast cuts away from her, and, except for the people at our table, no one hears her say, "Jack, can we have medicine? I'll catch food if we can have medicine."  
  
The request isn't necessary. Haymitch is already working on it, and Jack and I are pooling money.  
  
But the Gamemakers refuse us.  
  
When Haymitch comes down, he is fuming. "They said their medicine didn't work. It's some weird strain of the flu. So they won't send more. They're working on something else."  
  
"This thing kills in a couple of days!" Jack says.  
  
"Yeah. I know."  
  
"What in the hell are they going to do?"  
  
"They wouldn't tell me. Whatever it is, Plutarch's having an argument with the head Gamemaker about it." Haymitch grimaces, then sits down and picks up the sponsor pad. He pretends to be making notes, but I see what he really passes over to Jack: _I think they're going to burn it. It's the only thing they can do._  
  
I stare at this.  
  
Haymitch picks up the supply book and starts looking for clues to send.  
  
Johanna sits a good distance from the sick boys, but listens to Silver's story about finding Butterfly and Aster.  
  
"They just left Aster there?" Johanna asks. "No claw?"  
  
Silver frowns. "No. That's weird. She was just lying there. Keefe killed the other one, though."  
  
"Sounds like there wouldn't have been long to wait."  
  
"Thanks a lot," Silver grumbles.  
  
River starts coughing in the evening, about two hours before Hyrum dies. The claw doesn't come down, though Johanna suggests moving everyone away from the body. Silver still has some medicine in his system, and might even be fighting off his relapse. Johanna hasn't gotten sick at all. Haymitch gives Jack money to send her a bucket, but she just looks at it with puzzlement.  
  
The lightning strikes in the darkest part of the night. Johanna is up on watch, sitting under a peaked archway that shelters her from the wind, swinging her axe absently and looking at the stars. Silver and River are both supposed to be sleeping, but are lying awake, coughing miserably. River keeps trying to go over to Hyrum's body, on the theory that they need to put a light on it, so that the Gamemakers can see to pick it up.  
  
There are little bursts of lightning across the sky several times, arcing over the dome of the forcefield like white capillaries, but the big one still seems to come out of nowhere. It blasts down into the ruin, not onto Hyrum's body, but close to it, into a pile of dry leaves and grasses.  
  
The fire is fast and hot, eating up the fuel that's been collecting there for centuries. In seconds, the ruin is an inferno.  
  
Johanna jumps to her feet. "River! River get out here! Now!"  
  
Something crashes down. "Johanna?" River shouts. "Where are you? I can't see you!"  
  
She struggles into the flames, using her axe to knock away burning plants. "Can you hear me?"  
  
"We're coming!" Silver manages, but breaks down in a coughing fit. River manhandles him across a patch of smoking vines and hurls him at Johanna.  
  
She manages to manhandle him to the main archway and roll him down a hill, then says, "We need to…" She trails off, and her eyes go wide.  
  
I look at Haymitch's screen. River is back in the flames, headed for Hyrum's body.  
  
"River!" Johanna screams. "River you get out of there now! He's dead, you don't need to help him anymore! River!"  
  
A tree growing up between the walls sparks, then falls in.  
  
River's screen goes dark.  
  
The cannon sounds.  
  
Silver starts coughing, but it doesn't cover his laughter.  
  
Johanna turns on him, furious. "You shut up! Shut up!"  
  
"What an idiot!" Silver gets to his feet. "Dying to save a corpse. Oh, you know how to pick 'em."  
  
"You're dead anyway," Johanna says. "You're with the morons who decided to bleed a sick girl. You could have just let that girl die, but instead, you got a surprise, didn't you. They ought to give her the kill."  
  
"I'm going to make it through," Silver says. "I'm going to make it to the end, and they'll heal me in the Capitol." He lurches forward, a rock in his hand.  
  
Johanna raises her axe.  
  
"Yeah, right," Silver says. "Little crybaby's going to cut me up. I don't think so. I think you're just going to drop that thing and beg me to let you --"  
  
The sound of the axe hitting him is a dull thud. It's not dramatic. Johanna is not crying or screaming. Her face is set and cold. She may have been aiming for his hand, which he'd raised up to hurl the rock, but his movements are slowed by sickness.  
  
The axe comes down at a sharp angle, where his neck meets his shoulder. There is a spray of blood. Johanna pulls it out and slams it into his skull.  
  
She's covered in his blood now, and whatever is in it must be in her, too.  
  
She stands, wild-eyed in the firelight.  
  
"Send her a new axe," Finnick says.  
  
"What?" Jack asks.  
  
"Just do it. Tell her it's all right to live."  
  
On screen, Johanna backs away. Her mouth twitches in a crazy kind of smile. It's followed by a scream, but the general audience doesn't see it.  
  
"Well, well," Claudius says when they cut back to the studio. "It seems our little mouse can roar! Have we been fooled from the start? Let's take another look at Johanna Mason's journey…"  
  
Since none of this happened during mandatory viewing, it gets around the audience the next day in whispered rumors from people who watched late night. Mandatory viewing in the evening opens up with man-on-the-street interviews about what people have heard of Johanna Mason. Some are confused about whether or not they're talking about the same girl -- the crybaby who came out on stage with smudged mascara. When they learn that she's killed a boy from District One -- with axe blows, no less -- they can't seem to put the idea together. For others, she's turning into a myth. She put on an act at first to throw off the scent, but in reality, she's a cold-blooded, efficient soldier. Jokes pop up now about how tough she is (a common one is based on the theme that when a bear ran into Johanna in the woods, we learned for sure where it defecated.)  
  
Jack sent her a new axe at dawn, and she has spent the day tracking down Jacoba and Collie. It's not a difficult hunt, because both girls are starting to get sick, and it's made them careless. Johanna seems to be waiting for them to separate a little bit.  
  
Meanwhile, the other remaining alliance -- the kids from Nine and Raven -- are having wolf troubles again. District Five is urban, and Raven has no experience at all with animals. Dottie and Mayfield have dealt with a few small predators on the farms, but nothing as large and organized as a wolf pack. (Haymitch mutters that he's pretty sure they've shipped in mutts, no matter what they're saying.) They're forced back toward the river to find shelter.  
  
About an hour into mandatory viewing, Jacoba, the girl from Two, excuses herself to go to the river and wash up. She's most likely trying to hide the pustules under her arms. Collie, Mags's tribute, barely notices. She's obsessively poking at a swelling under her jaw.  
  
Johanna doesn't attack her from behind, but she does come in so fast that Collie barely has time to pick up a weapon. The fight only lasts for three blows, and Johanna lies in wait for Jacoba to come back.  
  
The field is down to four by the end of the night's broadcast, and the Capitol has a new darling in the "devious" Johanna Mason. The crying cartoon figures give way to two-sided dolls, one face grinning impishly, the other smiling madly. Some of the vendors even make paper masks to be worn on the back of the head, so the real face can be painted one way, and the view from behind is the other.  
  
Raven Clemm tries to kill a wolf the next day, and ends up set on by the whole pack while her allies watch in horror. That evening, Dottie makes the mistake of looking for some privacy to relieve herself. Johanna, who has been watching the whole time, catches up with her in the bushes. It comes down to a final fight between Johanna and Mayfield. Mayfield is healthy and armed, which makes him a harder enemy than the others, but he doesn't seem to be able to reconcile the idea that the girl with the axe is the one he turned away for being a weakling.  
  
We're barely halfway through mandatory viewing when Johanna Mason becomes a victor.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johanna is kept in isolation for a few weeks, during which time the Games staff and mentors are at loose ends.

Johanna is kept in isolation in an undisclosed location for three weeks after her Games. "We wouldn't want that flu to come back and ruin her celebration!" Claudius chirps. This leaves everyone here for the Games at somewhat loose ends.  
  
Haymitch and Chaff start drinking, predictably enough. I visit sponsors for next year. Mags spends time with a sculptor friend. Seeder attends the ballet, and takes a master class. Caesar is tasked with keeping the audience's minds on the Games, and he does it by hosting a series of movies that have been made about them, or biopics about the victors. There's even a new movie made about Rogan Lally, the second victor, who died last spring. They push the production through so it can be screened during the downtime.  
  
Finnick goes through several lovers, as do Cashmere and Enobaria. Jack doesn't. This puts him in a very good mood. "I'm not the flavor of the month anymore," he says. "I guess I'll just have to amuse myself in the Capitol instead of amusing other people." He decides to help the Gamemakers pick a wardrobe to go into Johanna's new house, and he asks me to help him, since she seems to like my taste and the District Seven escort, Barnabas, knows very little about women's fashion ("Which explains why he likes our stylist," Jack quips). Jack himself knows a great deal about menswear, and rather likes Capitol fashions, but he's had very little exposure to young women.  
  
We spend a day in the fashion district, going from shop to shop. At first, he suggests that I actually buy her the same kinds of clothes I wear, but I convince him that she wouldn't like that in the end -- there should be a difference between the way a fifteen-year-old girl and a twenty-seven-year-old woman choose to express themselves.  
  
I get her a lot of winter clothes that will be appropriate in the isolated Victors' Village in District Seven, which Jack tells me is four miles off the nearest logging road, ten miles from the nearest camp, and thirty miles from town ("I'm grateful for that, since the town stinks of the paper mill"). Jack doesn’t consider everyday life. He wants to get her only high fashion. I convince him that she'll want clothes she can move around in outside the Capitol. We get her a nice selection of slacks and tops, and athletic shoes. Then we go a little wild with the upcoming fashions. I try to stick to the people Johanna would have heard of on her late night television binges.  
  
Philippa has a juniors line in production for the autumn line. I choose not to go with the plant life, given Johanna's abhorrence of looking like a tree at the parade. I get her sharp, geometry-inspired skirts and blouses, and a wildly twisting style of pantsuit that's made from a single band of fabric. We find the craziest shoes of the season, figuring she might like a laugh, and a selection of bright colored umbrellas for Seven's frequent rainy days, and I don't even try to resist the temptation to buy her a coat I had my eye on, but thought was too warm for the Capitol -- it's white pressed wool, bulky in a delightfully comfortable way, and emblazoned with this season's geometric designs in bright, beautiful colors. I also order her a full case of jewelry and an extensive make-up kit, along with a book on different cosmetic applications.  
  
I do think about young Cinna, whose collection will show sometime next month, but I don't know where his studio is. Johanna won't have heard of him, anyway.  
  
"Will she want wigs, do you think?" Jack asks, perusing a selection of hair extensions for himself. "You were wearing them when you were her age, weren't you?"  
  
_Let's see what's under Effie's wig!_  
  
I shove the voice aside. "I think the head is more of a long-term commitment. I'll give her a catalog if she wants to try them, but once your stylist is finished with the closing events, she'll probably want to pick a look that she wants."  
  
"Do you want to talk to her? I can contact her on the hovercraft. I was going to call her."  
  
I go with him back to the Training Center. We can't call from one of the open phones in the Viewing Center, so we go up to the District Seven apartment. Barnabas and Blight are sitting in the dinette, playing cards and smoking. Barnabas has come and gone in District Seven twice now -- there aren't that many male escorts, and Blight has a habit of chasing them off -- and I guess they've come to some kind of rapprochement, or at least found out that they can share irritating habits and only annoy each other with them. Jack asks if either wants to talk to Johanna; they both decline. I haven't gotten a close look at Blight for a while. He looks hollow-faced and empty. There's no time to wonder about it.  
  
I'm so used to the second mentor's door being shut and the room never being used (Haymitch is a creature of habit, and always takes the room on the left side of the hall) that I am surprised when Jack takes a right. Haymitch's room, like the escort quarters, overlooks the city, with a view toward the lake. Jack's window looks out on the Training Center courtyard, where a fountain shoots multi-colored water toward the sky. Haymitch, Chaff, Seeder, Cecelia, and Woof are sitting under a trellis of twined roses, laughing over something they're watching on a little television Cecelia's holding. She had her second baby last year. I wonder if she's showing baby pictures. I should ask to see some.  
  
Jack looks over my shoulder. "I'll have to check on that later." He nods toward his desk, where his phone is warming up. The holding image is projected onto the wall behind it. Beside the phone, there's a picture of Jack in District Seven, not wearing any of his Capitol fashions. He and a tall blond man are grilling something on a bricked up patio. There's also a picture that I assume is of his parents, and a large one of a fireplace surrounded by kitschy art. The blond man, who I assume is Linden, is painting a wooden duck.  
  
Haymitch never brings anything from home to cheer the place up.  
  
Then again, I don't know if Haymitch _owns_ anything that can really be said to cheer him up. He actively resists being cheered up.  
  
Jack pulls a chair over for me as the image from the phone resolves itself into Johanna Mason. The first thing I notice is that she's cut her pigtails off.  
  
Jack grins. "I better warn Sylvania about the hair. I think she was planning on going the little girl route."  
  
"They just kept washing it with this smelly stuff. I couldn't sleep with it. So I cut it off with a kitchen knife. They can fix it up later, right?" Johanna frowns at him. She's pale and too thin, and has the haunted look that most of the victors have when they first come out, but she seems to be more or less all right.  
  
"Sure they can. How are you?"  
  
"Not sick, that's for sure. I don't think I'm ever going to get sick again, with all the stuff they put in me. It's possible that I'm actually immortal now."  
  
"Probably not, honey," Jack says, pointing at me.. "Do you remember Effie Trinket?"  
  
"From Twelve?" Johanna says.  
  
"From Twelve," Jack confirms. He widens the view, and I can now see both of us in the little monitor screen.  
  
"Why is she here? Is she mad about River? I didn't want him to die."  
  
"Of course you didn't, honey," I tell her. "I'm glad he had you with him for so long. He was very fond of you."  
  
"I didn't see him going back in there until it was too late."  
  
"I know. I saw."  
  
"Effie helped me buy clothes for you today," Jack says.  
  
"Sylvania's not buying my clothes?"  
  
"Only for the Games events," I say. "We bought you clothes for home."  
  
"Just blue jeans and stuff, then?"  
  
"A lot of it is every day clothes. But you should see the coat I got you. And some gowns."  
  
"Gowns?"  
  
"Gowns. You can dress up every night if you want to."  
  
"I can?" She looks up hopefully, more the little girl who watched fashion shows late at night than the one who just won the Games, then suddenly, a shadow falls over her. "I guess I could. But I don't have anyone to dress up with. And District Seven parties… well, they aren't anywhere I could wear a _gown_. They're mostly climbing trees and throwing logs and things. No one gets to see my gowns."  
  
"Excuse me," Jack says. "You have neighbors now. We'll have dinner parties every week. Saturday night. At your house, at my house. We'll even make Blight come along. Maybe he'll even remember that he can be sociable with his clothes _on_."  
  
She smiles faintly. "Sure. Why not?"  
  
"Do you want to hear about what we got you?" I ask.  
  
She forces the shadow away and says, "Yeah," and we spend twenty minutes telling her about our shopping trip. She says she can't wait for the first rainstorm so she can try out her new umbrellas.  
  
"So, what's going on out there?" Jack asks her when we've gotten through the inventory. "Do you know where you are?"  
  
"No idea. All the shielding is down on the windows. There are people in masks sterilizing everything every day. We switched hovercrafts when I landed -- me and all the Games staff. I don't know what they did with the other one. They keep taking my blood to make sure I'm not carrying anything. They said it was my flu everyone caught."  
  
"That's what they're saying here, too," I tell her.  
  
"Everyone's saying it's my fault?" She grinds her teeth. "I bet they're all saying I'm a murderer, too. I am a murderer, though. I guess."  
  
"They're saying you're a _victor,_ " Jack says firmly. "Same as they say about me, and Blight, and Finnick Odair."  
  
"I remember everybody in Seven saying Finnick Odair was a murderer." She bites her lip. "He was pretty nice to me, though."  
  
"He thought you were tough from the start," I say. "I think he'll want to meet you when you get back."  
  
"Is he usually nice?"  
  
"Almost always."  
  
She doesn't look like she entirely believes that the famous Finnick Odair wants to meet her. "Okay," she says. "I'll meet him, if he's nice."  
  
"What are you doing to keep busy?" Jack says. "I know it's hard after the Games --"  
  
"I'm good," she tells him sharply. "I'm fine. They have a television, and a Gamemaker named Plutarch Heavensbee is out here, and he gave me magazines."  
  
"They sent a Gamemaker?"  
  
"A couple of them. Heavensbee is the only one who talks to me. He says it's cold out. They let _him_ go outside. There are a bunch of Peacekeepers, too. Like I'm going to run away. All by myself where it's cold and I don't know where I am. Do they think I'm stupid?"  
  
I smile. "If they do, I'm sure they'll figure out that mistake soon enough, too."  
  
"Too?"  
  
"Well… you know how they were showing you before the Games?"  
  
"The crybaby," she says.  
  
I nod. "They kept that up for a while, then everyone saw you were stronger."  
  
Jack leans forward. "That's important, Jo. The story that's out is that you played a tricky game -- convinced everyone to ignore you, while you planned to wait them out and win."  
  
She snorts. "Yeah. Sure. Well, what else would it be, right?"  
  
"They're going to believe it no matter what you say."  
  
"What… you think it's _not_ true?"  
  
"Jo-jo…"  
  
" _Johanna,_ " she says, and cuts the connection.  
  
Jack looks at me. "As fresh victors go, she's more or less together. Hopefully, she'll get over the rudeness. She's just making up a face to wear."  
  
I'm not sure that's true, and even if it is, the faces the victors put on tend to be hard to take off, judging by Haymitch's behavior. Or Jack's, for that matter -- the public decided that he was a sensitive, romantic soul with a flair for drama, and that's exactly the face he still gives them. Finnick is the only one I know who's fully committed to keeping his public persona out of his private life, and even he slips sometimes.  
  
I don't say anything.  
  
I have dinner with Haymitch in a little dive he found a few years ago, not far from the Mutt Zoo, and he shows me the little video that Cecelia was showing them. It is of her two children. The older one, a boy named Isik, is trying to feed baby Esta applesauce. This somehow ends up a game where Cecelia uses her solid aiming skills to flick blobs of applesauce into Isik's open mouth. It's a strangely normal thing for Haymitch to have been laughing at.  
  
I tell him about my conversation with Johanna. The restaurant is crowded and there's too loud a din to listen in, and we're in a back booth anyway. I doubt anyone would be able to tell what I'm saying. I thought he might be interested to know that his Gamemaker friend was there, but he just shrugs and says he hasn't talked to Plutarch for a couple of years now.  
  
"She seems surprised that Finnick wants to meet her," I say.  
  
"Well, he's pretty famous. She is, too, but I promise, it hasn't sunk in yet."  
  
"She's only three years younger than Finnick. I wonder… well, he could use someone steady in his life, and another victor wouldn't be…" I trail off, unsure of what I'm saying.  
  
Haymitch raises an eyebrow. "Wouldn't be leverage?"  
  
I shrug.  
  
He thinks about it. "It wouldn't work."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"District to district romance? It would be harder than district to Capitol."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I mean, dating a Capitol girl -- it's a lot of phone calls. They're all bugged. Even if a guy hadn't ripped his phone out of the wall, there's nothing private. And where does it go? He can come here once a year for the Games, but they'll never let him stay in the Capitol. The victors are supposed to stay in the districts and be symbols. But the Capitol girl could move to the district. I can't think of why she'd want to, but in theory, she could. She'd have to quit her job. Give up everything. Risk having her kids in the reaping. She wouldn't be able to get good medicine very easily, and she'd have to put up with living with a victor --"  
  
"In theory, she probably wouldn't mind that part."  
  
"Yeah, but they wouldn’t be living in Theory. They'd be living in Victors' Village. Nice house, still in District… in the districts. But let's say there's theory happening, and she goes. _Maybe_ there's a chance. Probably not -- probably she'd run out of patience and run back to the Capitol in a month, and I'd be the first person to tell her she's smart to do it -- but _maybe._ But the thing is, it's possible, no matter how long a shot it is. It would be crazy, but, on the outer margins, it could be done."  
  
"But?"  
  
"But district to district? You can't even make a phone call district to district without proving that there's a good, work-related reason for it. It goes through the Capitol first. As to either of them leaving? They're both symbols of their districts. They can't get travel permits, let alone relocation permits. There's just no way for it to work."  
  
"Oh." I poke at my dinner. "You've really worked out why things are impossible."  
  
"I don't _make_ them impossible, Effie." He gives a kind of miserable shrug. "There's no one for me in Twelve. I barely have friends anymore, let alone… So, yeah, I've thought through other scenarios. 'Crazy long shot with a very unhappy Capitol girl' is the best working one I've got."  
  
"Who says she'd be unhappy?"  
  
"She's a Capitol girl. She'd be miserable. I wouldn't want that."  
  
"Theoretically?"  
  
He smiles. "Theoretically."  
  
We finish dinner. I go home. There's a ballet on television. Caesar must be getting desperate. It's about one of the roaming merchant caravans that crisscrossed North America after the Catastrophes, but before Panem rose. I can tell, because the sets that represent the era are pretty stylized -- dusty trucks in a circle around a fire -- and I've seen them before. The prima ballerina seems to be playing a fortune teller. She's doing a dance with a crystal ball, anyway, and she seems to have seen something in it that she doesn't like.  
  
It's very pretty, but I missed the synopsis, and I can't figure out the plot. I turn off the television. I don't have anything to do, so I finish Erastus's book. I still don't understand everything. He must have done a lot of research, because it goes on for pages and pages about how tidal locking works, even though the only important thing is that it means the two planets always stare at each other across space, like angry men about to start a fight. They never turn their faces away from each other, and just revolve around each other. The sides that are facing inward never get direct sunlight. Noon is a total eclipse of the sun by the other planet. What light they get is indirect, so when there's light, it always looks like sunset or sunrise. There's an extended conversation about this, so I assume it's supposed to be a symbol, but I don't know what the symbol is supposed to mean. I suppose there must be dictionaries somewhere that tell people who study that kind of thing, but I never did. Maybe I'll ask Haymitch.  
  
In the end, they don't avert the disaster. The asteroid hits the poor planet. They've managed to move everyone to the rich planet, but the other one has been knocked out of its orbit, and pulled into the gravity field. When it ends, the heroes are watching the object in the sky get larger every night, waiting for the two planets to collide and become one again, which will kill everyone.  
  
I'm not sure why they don't get in the spaceships they used for evacuation and go someplace else. I think it's a depressing book, and I don't understand it, but I dream about it for days. I dream that I'm standing on the observation deck with the gruff hero -- purely Haymitch in my dream, with none of the little masking tics that Erastus gave him -- and the cheerful boy who's attached himself to the group, and watching death approach with no escape hatch. Butterfly shows up in this dream sometimes. She is waving a handful of black feathers at it.  
  
The hovercrafts finally return to the Capitol. The head Gamemaker -- who is not Titania Dori, though no one offers an explanation for this -- kicks off the closing events.  
  
Johanna is whisked from one place to another, as the victor always is, and I'm not invited to any of the events, so I don't get to see her. Sylvania has her dressed in organic soil-cloth, and she ends each evening draped in living plants, looking like a small forest. When she watches her Games at the official release, I can tell that she's confused by how little of the plague is shown. They've cut things together to emphasize the idea that she deliberately tricked the other tributes (not, of course, the Gamemakers, who gave her challenges they knew she had it in her to beat), then finally started to show her talent for combat. Not much is shown of her friendship with River. It doesn’t fit the narrative. The cover shows her killing Jacoba.  
  
In Caesar's final interview, she comes across as brash and cocky. He asks the question everyone has been begging for -- when did she decide to "stop faking"? He suggests to her that it was when she realized that one of the stronger tributes had been beatable, and she jumps on it. I notice that she's wearing an emerald tie clip as a pin. I think it's actually Caesar's. I've seen him wear one like it, anyway. I guess she does have a talent for getting people to give her things. That will be handy when she's mentoring.  
  
The Games end after her sponsor banquet, and I walk Haymitch to the train. Instead of coffins in the cold car this year, there are two urns, emblazoned with the national emblems of Panem and the logo for the Sixty-Ninth Annual Hunger Games. Each urn is covered with hard, thick plastic. Haymitch secures them in his car. I touch each of them to say goodbye.  
  
Haymitch has already started drinking. He tries to give me a hug, and manages to get all of my jewelry off kilter somehow. I pull away and roll my eyes at him.  
  
He snorts. "Yeah," he says. "She'd be _real_ happy, theoretically."  
  
He turns away and shuts the door before I can answer this.  
  
The fall seems to last a long time. I go to Cinna Barrett's first show. His looks are different and fresh, and not at all on trend with the rest of the designers. Where Cinna's clothes are lightweight and mobile, letting the body under them do the heavy lifting, the others this year have been leaning toward the sculptural. Most of the other collections have shapes stuffed out with batting, creating frames around the head or body, or spiraling around the body like a cage. I buy a few of these. I try on one of Cinna's dresses -- he sends it over for me especially -- but I was right when I saw the sketches. I feel utterly naked and exposed, even though it has long sleeves and a fairly high neckline. It skims over my breasts, and I can see the little depression between them, and the curve of my hip is as clear as it is in the shower.  
  
I don't even dare go outside in it, and send my regrets that I just don't have an occasion to wear it to.  
  
In October, I find a little white kitten going through the garbage by my building. It runs from me the first few times I spot it, but I always bring it something to eat. After a couple of weeks, she starts coming to me. I don't know why, but I start talking to her like Haymitch, calling her "sweetheart," like he does with his tributes. She never does pick up another name. By November, I've taken her to a vet to get her shots, and brought her into my apartment. It's nice to have someone to say goodnight to, who is most likely not going to tell me all the things I need to improve about myself. In fact, Sweetheart seems to think I'm perfectly fine as is.  
  
Johanna's arena is retrofitted and cleared of the "flu," but there are multiple delays in opening it for tourists, though many people want to go. The coverage of the arena seems to peter out, and people stop asking questions, like they always do when the news drops a subject.  
  
In mid-December, the Victory Tour sweeps through. Johanna is again dressed in a way that reminds people of trees, sometimes quite literally when Sylvania has her in the season's sculptural clothes. She continues to act brash. She's gotten her hair styled in a spiky chop. Either she or Sylvania has dyed the tips green for the tour. I'm betting on Sylvania.  
  
She starts things off in Twelve, as usual, and it's a bust, as usual. If she says anything about River, or to his family, it's not shown. Haymitch doesn’t appear to be around. I do see the mayor's daughter playing the piano.  
  
The rest of the districts go roughly the same, until she reaches Four, where Finnick appears and the two of them clearly have a wonderful time together. She says she's been swimming at the ponds in the logging camp, and this leads to an afternoon on the beach in Victors' Village, where she and Finnick have a water fight in the shallows. They're interviewed together at the dinner. He makes fun of her dress (a sculptural one that has a literalistic tree branch curved over her head, with silk leaves dropping down off of it). She teases him about being big-headed. They seem to be having a food fight. By morning, the Fannicks have an all-out civil war going over whether she's just perfect for him or a conniving interloper who is planning to ruin him.  
  
It all ends, as always, here in the Capitol. I can't get to the party, but I do talk to Barnabas later on. He says she thankfully does not seem prone to intoxication, unlike some victors, but she's "tiring."  
  
"I think she managed to annoy the President," he says.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"He asked her to do something, and she laughed at him. She wouldn't say what it was about."  
  
After the tour ends, the Games fade back out of the public mind. There are new lines coming out of the fashion district. A new movie about human-looking robots starts a minor fad of people pretending to be robots. An actress's sculpture dress collapses under its own weight, leaving her standing an awards stage in her underwear. Cinna's line has a minor vogue among high school students, and he gets his picture on the cover of _Games Gab_ , interviewing that he'd simply love to be a stylist for the Games someday.  
  
I go about my life. I date Barnabas for a couple of weeks, mostly at his place, since he's allergic to Sweetheart. I buy clothes. I appear on the cover of _Capitol Life_ , wearing Philippa's new line. (Therinus acts quite offended.) I dream about planets glaring at each other. I meet with sponsors, and am seen in clubs and at shows, and tell reporters about how I'm sure that Twelve has a good year coming up.  
  
At the end of January, the coal mines cave in.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the mining accident in Twelve, Effie rallies Haymitch's sponsors to raise money, and goes out to help with relief... only there's no relief in sight.

I'm with a sponsor when it happens.  
  
I have a lunch meeting with Lucilla Campbell, one of Haymitch's usual sponsors, at a small restaurant where a television is discreetly placed above the bar. It's broadcasting a game show called _Under Covers_ where people try to guess which of their former lovers is behind a screen by asking questions about their former sex lives. The audience loves to gasp and titter at the revelations. Miss Campbell gives it a disapproving glare, then ignores it.  
  
She is sixty-three and has no regular job. Her money comes from a great-grandfather who made some major improvements in forcefield technology, and she's been fond of Haymitch since he actually made use of the forcefield in his Games. "Ga-Gandy," she assures me every year, would have been proud, and probably would have put Haymitch to work on his design team for creative thinking. "Of course, that was before things changed. People _did_ move around then, as I understand it. My great-grandmother grew up in District Three, but she moved here with Ga-Gandy, and no one questioned it back then." She sighs. "It was a different world. The districts weren't so steeped in sedition then. It was safe to let people come here. Don't you think it would be nice if things were like that again?"  
  
I flash briefly on Haymitch's belief that he has nothing in Twelve, and no one would go out there for him. I nod. "It would. In a lot of ways." I send our order in to the kitchen. "Miss Campbell, I know we've had some bad luck in the last few years, but the people in Twelve are very strong. Our tributes _do_ need help from friends and -- "  
  
I stop. I can see the television over Miss Campbell's head, and the volume goes up automatically for breaking news. I recognize District Twelve on the screen. My mind goes first to Haymitch -- Capitol news covering the districts is almost always about the deaths of victors, since they're the main point of interest -- but all it takes is a moment to realize that it's bigger than that. There's smoke drifting through the air, and Merle Undersee is carrying coffee (or some other hot drink) around.  
  
"What is it?" Miss Campbell asks.  
  
"Twelve," I say. "I should -- "  
  
She turns and looks over her shoulder. "Oh, my! It's an industrial accident. Dear, you should watch."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
I get up and move closer to the bar. The bartender turns the volume up further without waiting for me to ask.  
  
"…how long deliveries will be delayed," the reporter, stationed in a Capitol studio, says. "The footage we're getting is from the local liaisons. Miners are being brought up on the elevators. You see here the native population of District Twelve, waiting for news of its loved ones…"  
  
Miss Campbell comes up beside me and holds onto my elbow. I don't know whether she's trying to support me, or seeking support herself.  
  
The explosion in the mines happened two hours ago, at half past noon, local time. No one knows what caused it. There will be coal shortages, and people all over the country must prepare for rationed electricity and less frequent supply runs from the trains, the two major uses of coal. They don't know the extent of the damage to the infrastructure.  
  
The footage shows an elevator disgorging a crowd of coughing men and women. Smoke is rising from one woman's hair as she falls into the arms of her children.  
  
They've managed to work with whatever the local liaisons have for media, and they've wired the mayor up for sound. He puts his hand on an earpiece.  
  
"Is there any news of the cause of this accident?" the reporter asks.  
  
"No. No news. Frankly, at the moment, we're more concerned with rescue efforts. We'll investigate the cause when -- "  
  
"Capitol engineers theorize that miners may have been digging in unsafe areas."  
  
" -- when we have recovered our people." I have never heard Merle Undersee sound cold, in all the years I've known him. It's disconcerting. His daughter runs up to him, and he hands her a stack of blankets to distribute. "Our first priority -- our _only_ priority right now -- is bringing up the men and women trapped below."  
  
"Have any of the rescued miners been able to shed light on the accident?"  
  
"Most of them are still in shock," Merle says. "The mine supervisors will undoubtedly conduct a thorough inquiry in the near future, but they are currently leading the rescue effort."  
  
"Has there been any word on how much of the operation is damaged?"  
  
Merle glares at the camera, then says, in measured tones, "There is no report, because the crisis is ongoing. There are more chambers falling in now. We don't know the extent, because the extent hasn't yet been reached."  
  
The reporter gives this up as a bad job, and brings in experts on mining to talk about coal production and what kinds of catastrophic failures might have caused this. Footage continues to run in an inset corner. Now some of the miners coming up appear to be seriously injured.  
  
"Oh, dear," Miss Campbell says. "Those poor people. We need to help them."  
  
I nod. "I'll find out how to get money out there, and I think I'd best start calling all of our sponsors. We may need help before the Games."  
  
"You can count on my assistance, as always," Miss Campbell says.  
  
I go back to my apartment. I can't think of who I would call in the government, so I call Caesar Flickerman. He promises to set up a fund and get things moving.  
  
I watch the news. They keep interrupting it by going back to regular programming, but as the day goes on, more information does trickle out. They know that there was a massive explosion in the lower chambers of the mines, possibly caused by entering a pocket of poisonous gas, most likely methane, which is contained in coal. The blast may or may not have triggered a coal dust explosion, which, they say, would have caused far greater damage than the initial methane burst. Poor ventilation and careless monitoring of these elements may have contributed. The shockwave has destabilized much of the structure of the mine, and some parts are simply falling in. They will eventually have to cut off oxygen to stop the fire. Engineers in the Capitol want this to happen immediately, but the mine chief loses his temper and yells at the cameras that there are still people down there, and they need to breathe. He is a Capitol liaison, but at the moment, he could pass for a local.  
  
Haymitch appears on the scene late in the evening. They try to interview him, but I gather that his response is not television-friendly, as the cameras quickly pull away from him. I see him in the crowd a few times during the long night. He isn't doing anything other than helping Madge Undersee distribute blankets and food.  
  
Caesar calls me back. He has set up a relief fund, and put me in charge of it, since I know the friends of District Twelve in the Capitol. I spend the next several days doing nothing but visiting Haymitch's sponsors and fans, and working with escorts from other districts to see if their sponsors will help out. A few ask if the government is doing anything. I don't know. It doesn't seem likely. I've never heard of the government doing much beyond trying to repair whatever a district's industry is. I call Merle in Twelve and ask what people need. He is beside himself. He spent the morning giving out medals of valor to the eldest children of the workers killed in the mines. There were twenty-one medals, and seventeen children. One of the miners was childless. Three families lost both parents.  
  
"They're in the Community Home now," he says. "I gave them medals and they're orphans. I told the supervisor not to put husbands and wives on the same crews anymore, not that it does any good now."  
  
"Tell me what you need," I prod him.  
  
"They're maybe going to get enough to cover a month, if they're careful," he says. "The families, I mean. Then they need to go back to work. In a mine that's falling down every day. I'll talk to the foreman. We'll need to shore it up. The money from the government is enough to put out the fire and close off that vein, and start looking for another one, not to make any improvements. We need to help the Community Home -- those were large families, and they're crowded in. And one of the miners' wives was very pregnant. I --" He takes a few deep breaths. "Effie, it's not money. We need our people back."  
  
"I know. But money is all I can do."  
  
"I know. I know. And I'd be grateful."  
  
He finally calms down enough to promise to get me a list of needed items. He knows off the top of his head that the Community Home needs more beds. Some extra non-perishable food, in case the bereaved families can't get on their feet. He'll find out what they need at the mines.  
  
For the first two weeks, it's fairly easy getting help. The accident is still routinely on the news, and images of children with tears streaming down their dirty faces run constantly. I go on talk shows and ask people to give what they can. Finnick tapes a message down in Four which is very effective (I'm not sure why -- all he does is mention how very well he knows the Capitol, and how generous he's certain they'll be). Cinna has barely broken even with this year's collection, but he stages a show to raise money for us.  
  
A little more than three weeks after the blast, an actor named Tiberius Cody is arrested for negligent homicide when he kills four people in a boating accident while he's high on morphling. The public discourse shifts to the dangers of morphling abuse. Charitable donations go to recovery programs and public service announcements. Money for District Twelve comes to a standstill before Merle even has a list ready for me. A few people I call tell me that they should take it as a warning sign and stop mining coal, anyway.  
  
There's a lot of red tape involved in getting material support out to the districts, and I spend most of February working with Caesar to cut through it. It also takes several weeks to get processed foods together for the relief packages, and no one seems to know much about what kinds of clothes the Community Home might need. Finally, a factory worker in District Eight sends a quick sketch of easy to produce items, and I put in an order.  
  
I want it to be quicker -- the month Merle mentioned is already up -- but the gears grind slowly. It's late March before I can get a shipment out there. I go on a passenger train that arrives two days ahead of it. I'm not sure why. I don't need to be there. But I feel like I haven't thought of anything other than Twelve for so long that I can't stay away until the Reaping. Caesar approves it, saying that he's sending a film crew along with the relief supplies, and I can host the broadcast on site. I ask Miss Campbell to look after Sweetheart. She has just lost her own cat, and is delighted to have one to look after.  
  
The train ride seems longer than ever. We stop for hours in District Eleven, and there's even a search of the train. I'm not sure why. Seeder comes to see me ("as long as you're stuck here") and asks me to bring Haymitch some fresh fruit. The engineers finally realize that she's there and escort her off the train, complaining that she set off their alarms and wasted their time.  
  
When I finally get in, there is a cold and miserable rain falling. People don't notice me coming from the station, wrapped in a heavy brown coat with a hood over my wig. They're hunched over, looking beaten and bedraggled. Everything here is gray and muddy. The town seems to be melting away.  
  
I move through the crowd. There are illegal stalls set up where people are trying to sell things. Some kind of gambling is going on behind a building. A terribly skinny little girl with her arms full of rags keeps stopping people. I suppose she's offering to clean for them, but no one seems to be taking. She disappears into the crowd before I can tell for sure.  
  
Merle meets me with his old gardening cart, looking grim. He's been running himself ragged with the re-opening of the mines, trying to work with the safety supervisors to get some kind of reassurance that they're not just inviting another disaster. The oxygen cut-off worked on the fire, as far as they can tell, though they don't have the right equipment to make sure that none of the deep pockets are still burning. Coal can burn for a very long time. They've moved back to older veins. He doesn't understand everything. He grew up a merchant. He only knows a little bit about coal.  
  
He stops driving because he's crying (from exhaustion as much as anything else, as far as I can tell), and can't see properly. I tell him that I'll walk the rest of the way to Victors' Village.  
  
I knock on Haymitch's door for quite a while before I decide he's not going to answer. He's left the place unlocked, almost inviting thieves (a supposition that I find perfectly plausible, given that he's left boxes of imperishable foods in the front hall). The thieves aren't taking up the invitation. Maybe they're put off by the smell.  
  
I don't know how Haymitch lives in this. His clothes are strewn around on the first floor. Food is spilled everywhere there's room for it. Something has gone bad in the kitchen sink, and it smells like the toilet may not have been cleared for a while. I have to clear garbage off the table in order to put down the basket of fresh fruit that Seeder sent.  
  
"Haymitch?" I call.  
  
There is no answer.  
  
I pull up blankets in the living room, but he's not on the couch. He's not upstairs. He's not outside on the green.  
  
I can't think of where else to look, so I go back into town and try the bakery. There's not exactly a crowd, but there are a good number of visitors wearing mine insignia, waiting in the crowd, and the baker's wife is badly keyed up, and she's shouting at the three boys to work faster, because they have an order to fill, and their father decided to wander off in the middle of the day to go pick up orders. The way she says "pick up orders" leaves little doubt that she is assuming some other, less wholesome, activity. She sends the biggest boy out to deliver a cake, and the middle one annoys her enough that she sends him to the back shed to get the next day's ingredients in order.  
  
"Peeta, you're watching the ovens," she snaps at the youngest. Behind the frosted window that separates the work area from the counter, I see the blur of movement as a small boy rushes to his task.  
  
Every time she turns to a customer, she is wearing a completely believable smile, as though we have somehow missed the screaming in between. We all look at each other awkwardly. The middle boy comes back in partway through and whispers something to her. She throws down a ball of bread dough and I hear the back door slam open. I don't catch everything she screams, but I do hear something about "Seam brats" and "pawing," then she's back, smiling at an engineer who wants to buy a dozen dinner rolls. I don't see Dannel anywhere. He seems to be taking a long time with his errand, and I can't stand the sound of his wife's voice. I'm about to leave when there's a crash in the kitchen. Her screech rises above every other sound.  
  
"You clumsy idiot!" she yells, and there's a harsh, whistling sound, followed by a pair of impacts and a yelp of pain. Through the frosted window, I see the shadow of the woman holding a metal spatula. It is springing back and forth from its impact with the cowering child below her. She moves to swing again.  
  
"Hey!" one of the engineers calls. "That's not necessary!"  
  
Her arm freezes, and she realizes that she's been seen. She comes out, her smile pasted on again. "I'm so sorry," she says. "My son burned your order. We'll replace it for you, but I'm afraid it will take a few hours for the bread to rise again."  
  
The engineer narrows his eyes. "Never mind. I'll wait until your husband is back."  
  
Her smile disappears. "Good luck with that," she says. "Next?"  
  
I leave with a few other customers.  
  
I'm about to give up on finding Haymitch and just go to my room at the inn -- for all I know, he's passed out on their local rotgut in some woman's house -- when I spot him coming across the square with Dannel. They're dragging a large crate on a sledge. It seems to be quite heavy.  
  
I run over to him. "Haymitch! I went to your house and you weren't there."  
  
"I was helping Danny with a shipment," he says. His words are slurred enough that I know he's been drinking, but I can't tell how much yet. He frowns at me. "What are you doing here, Effie?"  
  
"There's a relief train coming in a couple of days. I'm sorry it took so long."  
  
"A relief…" He rubs his head. "Capitol charity?"  
  
"Your sponsors have been putting it together," I tell him. "Merle knows. Didn't he tell you?"  
  
"Oh, yeah. I'm top of the list for District Twelve business. I get consulted on everything."  
  
"He's a little drunk," Dannel explains unnecessarily. "I… I thought maybe some fresh air would help him. Come on. I'll just drop this by the bakery, and we can get him home."  
  
I bite my lip. "Maybe… maybe you should stay at the bakery."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your wife seems a little… out of sorts. She was having an argument with your little boy and we --"  
  
His eyes go wide and livid, and he grabs the rope on the sledge, dragging it away like it hardly weighs anything, fuming toward the bakery.  
  
"I'll be back to send Beetee his birthday cake!" Haymitch calls after him. "Next week!"  
  
There's no answer. We watch until he disappears around the side of the building.  
  
"Maybe he'll do those boys a favor and kill her," Haymitch says.  
  
"And end up in jail like Finnick's mother?"  
  
"Good point. Maybe I should do it. It's the only thing I'm particularly good for."  
  
"Haymitch."  
  
He flaps his hand to close the subject, and starts heading out toward Victors' Village. I follow him.  
  
We don't talk, but he does slow down enough for me to walk beside him. When we pass under the gate into the Village, he says, "You've been fundraising? Really?"  
  
"They haven't shown any of it on television out here?" I ask.  
  
"No. Help comes from the capital-letter Capitol, not from the people who live there." We get to his house and he opens the door. He surveys the untouched pile of food. "They might not even take it, Effie. They might let it rot just to spite you."  
  
"That seems a little short-sighted."  
  
"Yeah, well, when all you have is pride, then giving it up is pretty expensive." He goes into the living room and starts throwing away the garbage on the floor and the sofa, until there's enough room for both of us to sit down, then goes rummaging for something edible. He finds the fresh fruit Seeder sent and brings out the basket, along with a liquor so strong it makes my eyes water across the couch. He pours two glasses of it and hands one to me. "To pride," he says, and drinks without waiting for me. I taste it. I can't say I've ever tasted anything quite like it, but it tastes like some of the stronger hair products I've used have smelled. My head swims at the first swallow.  
  
He downs the whole glass and pours himself another.  
  
"Haymitch, you shouldn't do this," I tell him.  
  
"Do what?" He drinks. "This is me, Effie. This is the guy you pretend doesn't exist when we're in the Capitol. I'm a slob and a drunk and I don't do anything worth doing. This what you want, Effie? Is this where you wouldn't be unhappy?"  
  
"It's not even what _you_ want." I reach over and take his glass away, then press my hand over his. "Is this about the accident, Haymitch? I saw you on television helping at --"  
  
"Helping?" He stands up abruptly and grabs the bottle. He drinks directly from it. "I was helping, that's a laugh. I was handing out coffee to widows and orphans."  
  
"You were doing what you could."  
  
"No, I wasn't." He goes over to a pile of what looks like more garbage -- crumpled papers that have been flattened out several times and scribbled over, an old pile of stitched-together rags (with more scribbling on it), moldy and broken books. He fishes through it and comes up with a handful of papers. "Look!" he says. "Look at that. My daddy was working on this while he was _dying_ , Effie." He waves them at me. "A detection system. It would have been cheap. I could have been working on it all this time. I could have finished it. Beetee invents things. Useful things. I could have asked him to help me finish. Momma made notes on it. See?"  
  
I look. I do see two different hands in the mess of writing and sketched diagrams. "But Haymitch, you don't know about this."  
  
"I _should_." He sits down miserably on the floor and takes another drink, then carefully spreads the notes out on the floor in front of him. He puts his hand on them gently. "Why do I have a brain if I'm not using it? Look at me, sitting up here and thinking I'm too good to learn about mining. My people have been mining since forever. Why was I too good to learn about this? I should've studied on it. I should have been down there, or nowhere. Maysilee should have come home from the arena. She wouldn't be sitting up here doing nothing. She'd have gotten everything fixed by now. She had _plans_. All I ever do is poke holes in other people's plans. Told them not to hit the tracks --"  
  
"Haymitch!"  
  
He looks up, spooked. "I mean, I told people it was _stupid_. That the tracks got hit that year. Only what did I ever do to fix things?" He looks down at the notes and starts to weep. "Why am I even here, Effie? Better people than me are dead. I should have done something."  
  
I get up and carefully move his parents' notes up to a coffee table, where they'll be at least a little safer from the constant spills. I put my arms around him. His hands clasp together in the middle of my back, and I brush his filthy hair with my fingers. "It's why I love you, you know," I say. "Because you look at all of this and try to figure out how to fix it. Because it matters to you."  
  
"For all the good it does. I can't even save anyone in the arena, let alone here."  
  
"Do you know how many people would just give it up as a bad job?" I kiss him. He'll be angry when he sobers up -- if he remembers -- but now, he takes it gratefully. I put my hands on either side of his face and make him look at me. "But this isn't your fault. I've had a reason to read about these things lately. There've been explosions in mines as long as there have been mines, no matter what detection systems they have. It's _ventilation_ they needed."  
  
"I tried to buy into the mine, so I could put in better ventilation. I tried it years ago, Effie. They won't let me. Only the government can own it, so I can't do anything about it. I want to. I want to be able to do something. It's poison down there. It's a death trap and they go in _every day_. And I never really tried. I never did as much as my daddy and momma. I didn't even do as much as you. All I ever did was sit up here and waste everything. I'd do as much good dead. But I promised her I wouldn't."  
  
I try very hard not to understand what promise he's having trouble keeping, but I can't quite do it. If I want to see what Haymitch thinks of himself, all I have to do is look around this house, at the hatred he spews at it, the same hatred he treats himself with when he's here. I remember the pills spilled around him after Nasseh Rutledge died. He invites thieves to steal his food, and he invites Death to steal everything else.  
  
I don't have anything wise to say to him. I don't know how to fix what's wrong with him, let alone the problems in the world that are eating him up. I just hold and kiss him until he finally falls asleep beside me on the filthy floor, his head resting on my breast, his arms clasped around me. I stay for a little while, then get up without disturbing him. I can't rouse him to move him someplace more comfortable, so I get him a few pillows and wrap him in a blanket, then get things straightened up a little bit around him.  
  
He wakes up quite late at night, and seems surprised that I'm here. He vaguely remembers running into me on the way back from the station. I just tell him that he seemed upset, so I stayed.  
  
He looks at me for a while, and I wonder if he's remembering anything else, but he just says, "I'm all right now, Effie. Thanks."  
  
"I should go over to the inn."  
  
He looks out the window. "No. It's late. I have a lot of extra rooms. Most of them, I never go in, so they're not…" He glances at the filth. "They're not like this. You stay in one of them tonight. Mom's, Lacklen's, whichever. They only slept here the one night. There are even two more that no one was ever in. I never filled up the house. Do you have any of your things?"  
  
I don't -- my luggage went straight to the inn -- but he has enough toiletries for me to clean up with, and I can sleep in one of his old shirts while I run my clothes through his washer for tomorrow. He takes me up to one of the unused rooms, this one overlooking the empty house next door. It's in pristine condition, except for the layer of dust. He takes off the bedspread and shakes it off without comment, and beats a little dust from the curtains. "You'll be all right here," he tells me.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want me to… stay with you?"  
  
He thinks about this for a very long time, not moving, then looks down and repeats, "You'll be all right here."  
  
Sleep is slow in coming. I can hear Haymitch snoring down the hall, and muttering in his sleep. He calls out once for Maysilee. There's a lot less soundproofing here than in the apartment in the Training Center. I finally sleep in the wee hours of the morning.  
  
When I wake up, I hear him moving things around downstairs, and I go down quietly to find out what's happening. My outfit from yesterday is out of the washer and hanging neatly on the bannister (I almost laugh; he's hidden my underthings discreetly in one sleeve), and it looks like he's been trying to clean up the vast majority of the mess. He's not doing a very good job, but he's trying. I take my clothes and go upstairs to get dressed before he notices me.  
  
He walks back to the inn with me that afternoon. It's a pretty spring day, and the wildflowers and dandelions are starting to bloom. We have lunch together. He makes a point of telling Mrs. Shannon that we just talked late into the night, even though I'd guess that, as an innkeeper, she's seen more scandalous things over the years than a pair of old friends comforting each other. My luggage is sitting behind the counter, and she tells a teenage boy who's just come in with Sarey to take it upstairs for me ("Since you spend half your waking life in here anyway, you may as well make yourself useful").  
  
Haymitch comes upstairs with me, but doesn't come into my room. We stand on either side of the door for a minute or so, then he kisses my cheek and leaves.  
  
I spend the rest of the day meeting with Merle and the engineers at the mine, with the list of all the things coming on the relief train. I talk to the camera crew on board, and we discuss keeping the coverage low key. We're not here to have a party, but to deliver needed supplies.  
  
Everything is working out.  
  
But the train never arrives.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie learns why the train never made it to District Twelve, and the tribute train might be the next not to make its destination.

At first when the train is late, I don't think anything of it. Cargo trains aren't like Games trains, or even passenger trains. Sometimes, they're just late. I check at the station, of course, but there's no particular news. It's late for District Eleven, too, though it made the outer-district rotation just outside District Ten, and reported in from the Mississippi bridge station on time. District Six speculates a power glitch, since they've been trying to run on less coal since the accident. There's been no communication. They're sending an aid car in from Eleven, just to make sure.  
  
I go to Haymitch's place to tell him. He's started drinking for the day, but he's not terribly far gone. He seems more suspicious of it than the District Six teams. He comes back into town with me to monitor the situation. Since there's nothing to see, he goes to the bakery and orders a cake for Beetee, and some cookies for Finnick. Apparently, the District Twelve bakery is quite popular among the victors.  
  
The first sign that something is seriously wrong comes just after sunset. Haymitch and I are at the mayor's home, and Merle is suddenly called away from the conversation. Haymitch and little Madge are looking at old pictures at another table.  
  
Kay smiles awkwardly. She is drawn and sickly, and looks considerably older than her husband. "Life in politics," she says. "I'm sure it's nothing. Madge, darling, please play the piano for us."  
  
"But Mr. Abernathy was telling me about Aunt Maysilee!"  
  
"Was he?"  
  
"Oh, just stories from the Capitol," Haymitch says. "During training. On the train, things like that." He looks between Kay and Madge awkwardly. "She… well, she asked. I didn't think you'd mind."  
  
Kay sighs. "No. No, I don't mind. Why don't you bring the pictures over and tell all of us?"  
  
We're just getting settled when Merle comes back, looking grim.  
  
"What is it?" I ask.  
  
"The emergency car reached them," he says. "Madge, go upstairs."  
  
"But --"  
  
"I'm sorry, but that's not a request. Go upstairs, honey." Madge storms off and slams the door. Merle waits until he actually hears her thundering up the stairs before he takes a deep breath and says, "They reached what was left of the relief train."  
  
I stand up. "Was there an accident?"  
  
"It looks like an out-district attack."  
  
"Raiders," Haymitch says.  
  
"Raiders," Merle agrees.  
  
"Either that, or someone who wanted us to believe that."  
  
Merle looks around. "This room isn't bugged, but nothing leaves it, do you understand?" We all nod. Merle grimaces. "The tracks were blown, and when the train stopped, they boarded it and killed almost everyone on board. The camera crew… well, their equipment was used to film their executions. The raiders made off with the supplies. One of the District Six techs hid himself in a maintenance compartment and they missed him. They were on horses, of all things. They rode off for the mountains. Then they set off more charges. The tech barely got out before the whole train blew. They're laying down emergency track now, so Peacekeepers can get back and forth."  
  
"Snow's going to war," Haymitch says.  
  
I don't think there's likely to be much of a war with the handful of out-district raiders, though I suspect the group that attacked the train is going to be dealt with harshly.  
  
I stay the night, but all non-essential Capitol personnel in the districts are called home the next day. They actually send a hovercraft. Haymitch sees me off at a platform just outside the liaison quarters. He tells me to be careful. He thanks me for trying to help, even though it didn't end up doing anything. He tells me that I'm "something else sometimes," and gives me a hug before the Peacekeepers impatiently direct me to the passenger area. I've never taken a hovercraft before -- they're usually used by government officials -- and I'm surprised at how comfortable they are. I talk to the mine supervisor's family most of the way home.  
  
Whatever is happening in the out-districts, we don't hear a lot about it on the news. Now and then, there will be a celebration of a soldier's life, and people are vaguely aware that something is happening, but the mentions on television are, at best, casual. There are a few reminders, obviously directed toward would-be adventurers, that anyone caught outside of the districts or the Capitol without authorization will be shot on sight, and any Capitol or district citizen caught harboring these criminals will be considered a traitor and treated appropriately. I notice that they stop running movies about adventures in the out-districts, and the wild but honorable bands of raiders that might be found there. These romance staples are replaced by action movies about conquering the wilderness.  
  
When the Seventieth reaping approaches, nothing is said about not taking the train as usual, though I notice when I board it that there are many more armed guards than have been there before. I spend much of the trip looking anxiously out the window, wondering who's out there, but I never see anything. Haymitch is drunk when I get in, though not drunk enough not to look ashamed of himself for it.  
  
I call up two Seam children, Olla Makemie and Briar Sturt. Olla has a huge family, and I spend most of the time before we leave trying to get the keyed-up security personnel to let all of her brothers and sisters in to see her. I barely get a glimpse of Briar until we are underway.  
  
Haymitch is plying himself with coffee, and I've given him the start of his medicine, but as usual, it's just me with the tributes for the first hour or so. I try to get to know them. Olla tells me all of her siblings' names, and shows me her token -- a handmade rattle that all of them have had as babies. Haymitch will have to empty the seeds inside it so she doesn't make noise whenever she moves, but I decide to let him tell her that. Briar doesn't have a token. He claims that he's just as glad to not be dying in District Twelve. "At least the Games will be interesting first," he says. "I'm just about bored to death in school."  
  
I suggest that he doesn't say that to Haymitch.  
  
He shrugs.  
  
We watch the reapings. The usual run in Districts One and Two. A weeping twelve-year-old in District Three (jokes are duly made that she might be the next Johanna Mason). District Four has a pair of eighteen year old volunteers -- a sweet-looking girl with long, wild brown hair, and a hulking boy who I assume is her boyfriend, as he kisses her when he gets to the stage. I can see Finnick sitting at the rear, clearly annoyed by the display. Johanna has taken over mentoring the girl from District Seven, according to the reports, though Jack is planning to come to the Capitol. District Ten shows some promise. Olla and Briar are somewhat glossed over ("It's been a tragic year for District Twelve… can our brave tributes turn it around?").  
  
I get them changed into decent clothes, and I've started their dinner and manners lesson when Haymitch finally decides that he's sober enough for company. He sits down and gets to know what he can about them. Olla is being stubborn about table manners. I do not understand the refusal to learn to use a fork, but for some reason, a lot of the kids consider it a positive virtue to avoid flatware. Haymitch tells her that she needs to make her momma proud by not giving anyone anything to make fun of, and this seems to work. Briar has already gotten most of it.  
  
"So," Haymitch says, "the first thing I tell everyone, and you need to listen, is stay away from the Cornu --"  
  
The accident happens so fast that it's over before my mind can come up with a reason for the sudden, screeching, twisting stop that throws all of us against the wall. The train is listing to one side. Glasses and dishes are broken on the floor, and Olla has a cut above her cheek.  
  
"Remain calm," someone orders over the speakers.  
  
No one has had a chance to panic yet, but at those words, I realize that we've just crashed, that the train has gone off the tracks at almost two hundred miles an hour, that I have no idea where we are, and that there are hostile forces out here.  
  
I scream.  
  
Haymitch grabs me and puts his hand over my mouth. "Be quiet," he whispers. "Effie, just be quiet."  
  
I hear gunfire further up the train, and yells from the security personnel. Out one window, I see horses running loose. A blond man with a large knife runs directly by. He's wearing a mish-mash of clothes from different districts. Time seems to flow in strange, disjointed chunks. I can see my teacup from supper, amazingly unbroken, leaning at an angle where the table has tipped up against the wall. It's still steaming. I stare at it.  
  
There's more shooting. I can see a high district fence in the distance. We're out on the plains. It has to be either District Six or District Nine. I don't see the Rotation, so it must be Nine. Grain. I don't know anything else about it. They keep to themselves out here.  
  
Until now.  
  
"Are they going to rescue us?" Briar whispers.  
  
"I don't know what they're here to do," Haymitch says. "You stay down."  
  
He starts to get up, but the window shatters at the end of the car.  
  
He puts himself between it and the tributes. "Effie," he says calmly, "grab a knife. Grab me one, too." He nods to the table, which is only a few feet away from me.  
  
I can't imagine myself holding a knife. I can't imagine fighting the men who are crawling through the broken window, bloodying their hands. I can't even imagine moving.  
  
Haymitch looks at me. "Effie, you can do it."  
  
I try to reach for the knives on the table, but there's a thunderous boom. A bullet ricochets around the cabin. Somehow, it doesn't hit anyone.  
  
I grab the corner of the tablecloth and pull everything to me with a clatter. Haymitch grabs a knife. I grab another. There is no way I'll be able to use it.  
  
The first man comes through, and a second starts to.  
  
Haymitch stands up, knife raised. "What's your business here? Hold up your hand."  
  
The man starts laughing. More windows start to break, and I see men outside climbing toward them.  
  
"Are you here to rescue us?" Olla asks eagerly. "From the Games?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, honey," he says. "You'll never see the arena. Let's see how they do if half their tributes can't come out and play this year."  
  
"Really?" Olla stands up.  
  
"Get down," Haymitch says, pushing her away from the raider. "I asked what your business is. Who are you?"  
  
"Name's Dust-rider," the man says. "At least these days. It's just possible I once had another name. Maybe it's on a list somewhere. But we'll stick with Dust-rider for now. And you're Haymitch Abernathy. Victor." He sneers this last word. "Capitol pet. Games whore."  
  
Haymitch shifts his knife slightly, getting a better grip. "You want to stay back."  
  
"Maybe I do," Dust-rider says, with faux regret. "But, see, that would ruin the whole point. There aren't going to be any Games this year. No tributes. No Games. And no victors."  
  
"You want to kill me, try it. Take your chances, anyway," Haymitch says. "But let the kids and Effie go. Take the kids with you. I'm sure it's not an easy life, but it's better than the arena."  
  
"That's not in the plan. See, we didn't permanently damage the tracks. They'll get to the Capitol with their mentor. We'll have you all styled up fancy, too." He looks at me, his eyes tracing up my leg, which is mostly bare. My skirt hiked up on me during the crash, and it's way up over the edge of my panties. "This one, we'll take with us, though. Nice offer. We'll all have a nice, long turn with her."  
  
He reaches over and grabs me by the wig.  
  
I am not strong enough to fight him fairly. He has a gun in his hand. He probably outweighs me by fifty pounds, all of it muscle.  
  
I bring my dinner knife down across his wrist.  
  
He lets go and shoves me down. The next man has come through the window.  
  
"Oh, you don't want to do that," he says. "You want to be a lot nicer to me, if you want us to be nice to you."  
  
The man is taller than Haymitch, so I don't see him coming until the knife flashes. Dust-rider slumps to the ground. He's still breathing, but not by much. Haymitch takes his gun and points it at the new intruder. "Effie, get the kids and move down the train."  
  
I grab Olla and Briar and shove them through a door. Haymitch is between us and the dining car.  
  
"Go!" he yells.  
  
I run. I know there's been shooting down here, but I'm still surprised to see dead Peacekeepers, and dead raiders. The kids are panting and panicked. So am I. But I've been on this train. I've watched them load it.  
  
I run for the wardrobe car.  
  
Since they don't know who the tributes will be, they pack wardrobes in many sizes, with a lot of different styles for the tributes to wear as they get ready for the Games. The wardrobe car is a maze of hanging canvas bags. I push the kids to the back of it and zip each of them into a bag. I should put myself into one, but I don't. I raise my knife again and go to the door.  
  
Haymitch is barreling down the corridor. I signal him inside and lock the door, then lead him back toward where the kids are.  
  
"You need to hide," he says. "I should have taught you to fight. I promised to do it, and I didn't. But I won't let them anywhere near you."  
  
I look out into the corridor. No one is coming. I hear fighting further down the train. I look at Haymitch. "Are these… your people?"  
  
He looks at me, and I expect him to deny any knowledge of what I'm asking. I'd like to deny knowledge of it, but I know better in my bones.  
  
He shakes his head. "No. These aren't our people. I don't know who they are. I have to go fight." He gives me the gun. "You're no good for close range, but maybe you can shoot straight, if you're lucky." He rolls his eyes. "Personally, I can't hit the broad side of a barn. I'll stick with what I know."  
  
He goes out into the fight.  
  
I practice aiming.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, a pair of Peacekeepers shoves Haymitch back into the wardrobe car. His ear is bleeding and he's almost unconscious. He passes out completely when he hits the floor.  
  
"Keep him here," one of the Peacekeepers growls. "We're charged with keeping victors in one piece, and half that gang is out to kill him on sight."  
  
I drag him to the back of the car, near where the kids are. From inside his bag, Briar asks if Haymitch is all right. I tell him that everything will be fine.  
  
The battle goes on for hours. Haymitch starts to come up from unconsciousness after a while, and I have to argue with him to keep him here. Olla is crying, and I let her out of her bag. Briar, too. If they get as far as looking in here, Haymitch says, they'll most likely just slash the bags. He goes to the alteration area and finds an iron and a pair of scissors for the kids, and tells them where to aim if it comes to it.  
  
Twice, raiders are shot near the door, but it's as close as they ever get.  
  
The Peacekeepers come for us just past ten, when the fighting is over. The man who gets us is bloodied and angry. He leads us outside. There's a large pyre burning in the darkness. I don't look at it too closely.  
  
We're led past the train, which is lying in a serpentine-looking tangle along the tracks, the cars pulling this way and that where they've zigzagged. There's an obstruction in the track -- a huge, burned-out hunk of metal that I think was once a truck. We must have been slowing down. If we'd hit it at top speed, the train would have buckled in like an accordion.  
  
Beyond it, there is another, smaller train waiting. We're loaded onto it. They serve us another meal, and we start moving again.  
  
None of us eats.  
  
We manage to get the kids into their sleeping cars, and Haymitch doesn't object when I get them something to help them sleep. I take one myself, but it doesn't do anything. I keep feeling the tug at my wig, seeing the way they were looking at me, waiting for their nice, long turns.  
  
I stay up in the observation car at the back of the train. Haymitch stays with me, and he stays armed.  
  
When we get to the Rotation in District Six the next day, we find that four other tribute trains have been attacked. They managed to limp their original trains this far, but we're joined by Districts Four, Ten, Two, and Five. Finnick and Mags were as obviously in the fighting as Haymitch was. Brutus brags about taking out three raiders. The tributes, already frightened, hang to the back with Olla and Briar. The girl from Four, whose name is Annie Cresta, looks dazed.  
  
"Her boyfriend pretty much threw her to the wolves," Finnick says. "He's a real prince. I'm not going to let her be his ally."  
  
"You're mentoring the girl?" I ask.  
  
"It's not written in stone that it's supposed to be the other way." He shrugs. "Mags suggested it. She seems to think I'm more than willing to let the jackass starve in the arena. And she thinks Annie…well, there was something about 're-focusing'."  
  
"Is she a good tribute?"  
  
"I don't know much about her," he says. "She's one of our local do-gooders. She makes nets, and deliberately makes mistakes so she can put them in the charity bin. She's rich," he says, as if I should have immediately guessed it. "Ship captain's daughter. About as well off as you can be in Four without actually living in Victors' Village. She's a little silly about the boyfriend, but she's nice. Too nice for this business, but I'm going to do everything I can. It's not like the world's overflowing with nice people."  
  
Since no one had the heart to finish manners lessons yesterday, we continue with lunch. There isn't much fight in the kids, and Olla's hands keep shaking when she touches a knife. But we manage to keep them calm. I notice that Finnick is a bigger stickler on this than his escort is. He doesn't even say it's about sponsors. He tells them that they owe it to themselves to give their best presentation.  
  
We are quite late pulling into the Capitol, but Caesar meets the train. The Games, for the first time in their history, have been postponed for a day, ostensibly to honor the heroic Peacekeepers who died defending the trains, but, as Haymitch finds it necessary to point out, probably to give the stylists and prep teams time, so they won't have another lackluster parade.  
  
It's strange staying in the apartment before the parade, giving the tributes a chance to see their costumes and be properly fitted, even sleeping in before they have to start prep. We don't turn on the television. It's not even something that Haymitch and I need to talk about. They will be talking about the attack. None of us wants to think about it.  
  
I do catch some of it while I'm out speaking to sponsors. It was a coordinated attack, much more organized than we usually associate with the raiders. We were all hit a good way from our districts, so we couldn't call for help. Some leaders have been identified as criminals who escaped to the out-districts years ago. They claim it's retaliation for the war since the raid on the supply train. President Snow promises to execute anyone found to have been involved.  
  
When I get back to the Training Center, the kids are well into prep, and Haymitch is having a low, urgent-looking conversation with Chaff, which stops as soon as I come up. We talk about nothing much -- certainly not about what happened on the train -- until the tributes come down from the Remake Center, and we get them ready for their debut. Therinus is back in a literal frame of mind. He has the kids in miners' uniforms. Olla is supposed to carry a live canary. They are both wearing black armbands to commemorate the accident. I'm about to praise Therinus for this touch when I hear him demanding that those ugly things be removed, since they break the line of the arm. I manage to convince him that pretty much everyone in District Twelve is wearing something to remind them of the tragedy, so it's "authentic." He's appeased by this. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Olla realizes that she lost her token in the attack. Haymitch's promise to get her a new token doesn't make a difference in her level of panic, so he goes to the apartment, phones Merle, and gets a picture sent over the wire. He gives it to Olla, who tucks it inside her coveralls.  
  
I don't know what I expect. I feel like things shouldn't be normal, not after a Games train was derailed, and criminals threatened to send corpses to the Capitol. I don't know how it _can_ be normal, when I can still feel their eyes on me.  
  
But it's normal.  
  
The parade introduces the tributes with no mention of why it's a day late. Kids get their fans, the fan clubs separate into factions. They train. They make alliances. The only obvious difference is that our trip together put together districts who don't normally interact, and Briar is actually quite friendly with the District Two kids, who for whatever reason dislike the District Four kids, leaving the usual inner district alliance short two tributes. I guess they convince the District One kids, because they put in a formal request for Briar as an ally. Olla sticks with the kids from Ten and Four. The District Five girl stays with them. The boy is a loner.  
  
There aren't any wild favorites this year. Scores are middling, with a high of ten (District Nine's female tribute). The interviews are forgettable. I tell Olla to talk about her brothers and sisters, but she gets choked up and decides to change the subject before she cries. The boy from District Two announces that he fought in what he calls "The Battle of the Trains," and took down two raiders himself. (Judging by the girl's eye roll, this may not be entirely true.) Annie Cresta talks about sailing, and how nice her mentor is. Johanna's tribute, a girl named Ingrid, tries to stumble through making fun of Johanna's "strategy" -- it's clearly what she was expected to do -- but is too nervous to pull it off.  
  
Games coverage during the lead-up days avoids the battle fully enough to be almost surreal. When it is brought up, it's in the manner of something that happened years ago, like the fall of the Green Tower, or the first Games. I try to talk about it with Haymitch, but he's distracted. Once the interviews are over and real coverage begins, it's not brought up at all.  
  
The arena is a deep valley, surrounded by hills, making a shape like a bowl. High in the hills, there's a lake. You have to climb up to it along a steep, muddy trail. From the first moment it appears, Haymitch is suspicious of it. He starts drawing diagrams of the maps that the Gamemakers are using.  
  
On the third day, Briar's alliance attacks Olla's alliance. The fight is bloody, and we lose both of them (though, thankfully, not to one another). Annie's boyfriend tries to get away from an axe-wielding District One boy, leaving her to fend for herself, but the other boy apparently considers him more interesting prey. He's decapitated in front of her. She kills the District One boy, almost by accident, and runs.  
  
She keeps running, away from the remaining alliance, hiding up in the far hills. Finnick tries sending her food and water, but she's in shock. She can't seem to process what happened. She talks to herself and eats leaves. No one comes near her. At one point, I hear Finnick yell into the phone that he's just a little bit busy, and someone can entertain himself.  
  
The Games get slow, like they always do. There's nothing abnormal at all. I start to question whether I actually survived an attack or not. I dream about it every night. It mixes with the memory of the business with my wig, way back in school, and I wake up in a cold sweat. I can't seem to shake it off.  
  
Haymitch isn't talking about the attack any more than anyone else is. He's meeting constantly with Chaff and Seeder and Johanna, all of whom have lost their tributes. He's watching that lake with great suspicion. He talks about a ballad they sing in District Twelve, about a place called Johnstown, where a lake in the mountains spilled out and killed hundreds of people.  
  
"They can't blow the lake," I hear Chaff say once. "With the forcefield, it would hold the water like a big fish tank. There'd be no getting away. They'd kill _everyone_ if they did that."  
  
Then they go back to their intense, urgent whispering. I go elsewhere.  
  
There are rumors of more possible attacks. Peacekeepers are on high alert. I notice them watching Haymitch sometimes, but then, they always tend to keep tabs on him here.  
  
Four weeks into the Game, the Gamemakers break down the earthen wall that holds in the lake. Chaff is right. The arena holds the water like a giant bowl. Tributes who weren't swept away in the initial flood tread water until they slip under.  
  
Annie Cresta is still in shock, but her instincts take over. She has spent her life on the water. She knows what to do adrift. She swims. She treads water. Finnick is trying to find a floater to send her when the last cannon goes off, and she becomes a victor.  
  
None of it seems real. It's not helped by the way she is practically yanked out of public sight. They can't have her muttering and mumbling to herself through the final events. They send in doctors with little pills. She keeps screaming for Finnick, but he can't always go to her. He has social obligations.  
  
Annie's been in recovery for eight days on the night I notice that all of Haymitch's friends are gone. Haymitch and Chaff aren't playing chess or holed up in a bar. Finnick and Johanna aren't trading barbs on the couches. Seeder isn't listening to soft music. Jack isn't keeping up a running commentary on the strange post-Games coverage. The District Six mentors, Berenice and Paulin, aren't strung out in the mentors' lounge.  
  
I am alone when the Peacekeepers come looking for Haymitch.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Effie learns that the Peacekeepers are looking for Haymitch and his friends in connection with the train attack, she takes a big risk to help them.

It's sheer luck that I'm in the Viewing Center at all when I see them. Haymitch has been retreating to his bars and his chess games in the park and, for all I know, the pleasure palace at the lake side. I can't honestly say that he wouldn't go there, if he got drunk enough. His check-ins with me have been spotty and inebriated for three days. The last one was at my apartment. He showed up last night complaining about how hard it was to find my building when they all looked the same. Then he grabbed my shoulders and said, "I'm sorry, Effie. Sorry about everything. They… they aren't us. I won't let anyone hurt you. Why would anyone hurt you?"  
  
Then he left.  
  
He hasn't come for his medicine. The bottle is full on the shelf in the Training Center apartment when I go there looking for him to tell him I've managed to get him a sponsor meeting in the morning. His room hasn't been slept in, though the couch is in disarray and some of his clothes are on the floor. He's been here long enough that he's starting to make it look like his place in Twelve.  
  
I go to the Viewing Center. I don't have a lot of hope of finding him there, either. There's a bar, but it's his least favorite one. He only goes there right after his tributes die, when he needs a drink more than he needs to get out of Games Headquarters, but it occurs to me that he might have left word, at least, or that maybe he'd come back to have lunch at the lounge, where no one will bother him. It's almost noon. I can wait for him.  
  
When I get there, it's nearly empty. The victors are taking the opportunity of Annie Cresta's slow recovery to spend time in the Capitol. Gloss and Cashmere are having dinner with a pair of Capitol sponsors in the extremely exclusive restaurant downstairs. Mindwell Larue is catching up on her paperwork at the District Ten table. Brutus and Philo are having some kind of fight near the mentors' lounge. I realize that none of Haymitch's friends are here, and a part of my mind is suddenly very alert. They often go out one or two at a time, but I don't recall ever seeing all of them leave together, even though they're all, as some of the other Games staff puts it, "thick as thieves."  
  
But I'm not really paying attention. I go to the District Twelve table. Haymitch has been here. There are, of all things, brochures about Capitol sightseeing out. He's long gone, though. The cut crystal whiskey glass is dry. I go back to the far end of the lounge, where the beds are set up, thinking he might be taking a nap down here, but of course, he isn't. Neither are the others, though I see a pair of heels kicked off under a chair. On the seat of the chair, there's a quickly discarded minidress made of thick, clingy white fringe. It's the style this year -- there's no underdress, and there's a certain element of danger in that it's held together by battery generated static, and sometimes the dress turns into a lightning show… and in a few cases, the cling has been known to give out and leave a lot exposed. I haven't worn it, but it's definitely Johanna's style this year.  
  
There's no one in any of the beds. I start to head back, figuring I'll start with the nearby bars and work my way out, but when I get near the arched doorway that leads into the lounge, I spot white Peacekeepers' coats. They've got Brutus and Philo cornered. I fall back into the shadows to listen.  
  
"…and you've got no idea where they are? Any of them?"  
  
Brutus takes a step back. "I haven't exactly been on friendly terms with Haymitch lately. We had to put up with the tributes being allies this year, but I still think he's a cheater."  
  
"How exactly do you _cheat_ at the Hunger Games?" Philo asks. "There are no rules."  
  
"We're not here to talk about _Games_ ," the Peacekeeper says, moving in threateningly. "We think they were in on your little adventure on the way here."  
  
"No way," Brutus says. "Not a chance. I don't care who we're talking about, no mentor lets his tributes get hurt if he can help it."  
  
"At least outside the arena," Philo clarifies.  
  
"Yeah? Well, you want to explain why half of them went missing from their districts this spring?"  
  
"No idea." Philo shakes his head. "They're all friends. I know Haymitch left with Johanna. I think they're showing her around the Capitol. He said something about showing her a place his escort took him once. They're probably all on one of those tours."  
  
"What place, exactly, did he say he was showing her?"  
  
"Oh, come on," Brutus says. "He's got a little girl who follows him around like a little puppy? What do you think he's showing her, the art museum? Oh, I know. The _library_." He makes an unpleasant face.  
  
I doubt he's covering for Haymitch. I'm pretty sure Brutus actually believes that Haymitch is off seducing a sixteen year old girl. But whatever he's doing, he's keeping the Peacekeepers occupied. Since I've been brought up, I decide it's better not to be seen.  
  
I go back to the lounge and quickly switch into Johanna's discarded dress and shoes. We are very close in size, and it's not particularly tailored. I take off my wig. I feel acutely exposed. I haven't been without it for years. But when I walk by, they don't even give me a second look.  
  
I get outside into the sunshine before the panic hits. What am I doing? That Haymitch has seditious thoughts is something I've always known. That they go beyond thoughts, I've suspected, and he's more or less confirmed.  
  
But if I try to find him and warn him that they're after him, it's treason.  
  
I stop.  
  
I can feel the breeze from the lake on my head, shifting the fringe of Johanna's dress. My breath wants to come in whistling gasps, but I force it to go in and out at a normal speed. I can't do anything about my racing heart.  
  
The Peacekeepers want them in connection with the attack on the trains. With the men who wanted to take turns with me after murdering Haymitch and the children.  
  
I think about Haymitch's empty house when I got to District Twelve in March. About how he was immediately concerned when the train was late, no matter how often trains run late.  
  
And about him swearing that these weren't his people, that he wouldn't let anyone hurt me.  
  
I think about him protecting Olla and Briar, and about the flash of the knife when he killed the man who was threatening me.  
  
They _aren't_ his people. I'm sure of that. Like Brutus, I know that no mentor would deliberately put his tributes in danger, and Haymitch would never expose me to it.  
  
But he could _know_ something. And if the Peacekeepers take him, then knowing something would be just as bad as doing something.  
  
I take a deep breath and swallow hard. Haymitch saved me on the train; I'm sure of that. And there are the others to consider as well. Finnick will be there. Johanna. Chaff and Seeder. Jack. Beetee and Wiress.  
  
I think their politics are dangerous, but none of them deserve what will happen if the Peacekeepers catch them at anything more sinister than sightseeing.  
  
I know where they are.  
  
I don't know if Haymitch deliberately let it slip, or if I've been handed a piece of luck on par with winning the lottery, and I don't care. I have spent a lot of time with Haymitch over the last eleven years, and in many places, but I've only ever _showed_ him one place.  
  
I head for the lake.  
  
I make one stop along the way. Going bareheaded and unadorned is _not_ in fashion this season, and isn't a way I'd show up somewhere. So I go to Philippa's studio, and tell her that I need to take some victors on a tour. She asks me no questions. She just gives me a white hat with a scarf under it, a pair of designer sunglasses, and a quick fix on my makeup. She hands me a large tote bag and quickly stuffs it with brochures and cameras and maps. Then she offers me a ride. I take her up on it, at least to the edge of monument park, then I send her back.  
  
I follow the cracked stone path past the overlook where I once sat with Caesar Flickerman, then down through the valley of the statues. I see them together at the wall overlooking the lake, under the statue of Mother Laelia. Haymitch is crouched by the wall, his hands on his head, looking like he's thinking so hard that his head will start leaking. Mags is bent over him, her hand on his shoulder.  
  
They're obviously arguing. Johanna, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, is standing on a bench, gesticulating wildly toward Beetee, who looks cross with her. Chaff grabs her wrist. The District Six mentors, Berenice and Paulin, and Cecelia are saying something urgent -- I'm guessing that they want her to calm down -- and Seeder is having a huddled conversation with Finnick and Wiress.  
  
I go toward them.  
  
Haymitch looks up and sees me first. He cuts off the conversation before I can hear words above the crash of the lake. He calls, "Effie! What are you doing here?"  
  
My hands are shaking. My knees feel like they're made from overcooked pasta. I feel like I should run, but I couldn't if I tried.  
  
I walk to them, smiling. "Sightseeing with you," I tell him. "Like we all talked about."  
  
"What?"  
  
I look at Johanna. "Remember? I told you we'd see the sights."  
  
She looks at me blankly.  
  
I smile more. "Sorry I'm late. I forgot where we were meeting. Luckily, Philo overheard you say where you were going, when the Peacekeepers asked him."  
  
Haymitch goes pale and quiet. "Effie…" he whispers.  
  
"I brought the cameras," I say, and reach into the bag Philippa gave me. There aren't enough for everyone, but I guess it'll do. I hand one to Haymitch, another to Finnick, and the third to Beetee.  
  
They all look at each other. Seeder blinks rapidly, then finds a very large smile. "Well, I'm sure glad you found us. I've been coming here for years, and I still haven't seen half of the historical sites. I'm not even sure I could find them -- like I said the other night."  
  
"Nice dress," Johanna finally says. She falls into the personality she puts on for interviews, a sharp half smile curving up on her face. "I should get one like it."  
  
"Well," I say, "you know how I like to be inconspicuous."  
  
There is a screech of tires on the street not far away. It might be Peacekeepers, or it might be a traffic accident. Whatever it is, it seems to remind them that they can't stand here looking like I surprised them in the middle of… of whatever they were arguing about.  
  
Beetee examines the camera. "Clever," he says. "Much better viewer than the ones we can buy from the machines here. I hope it didn't set you back too much."  
  
I hand around the bag, and everyone pulls out brochures and maps. Johanna has a pair of sunglasses, which she puts on, and makes a great show of posing for pictures that Finnick takes. Chaff and Jack start laughing over absolutely nothing. Seeder starts talking loudly about how Berenice should paint the lake. Cecelia grabs her purse and starts frantically showing Paulin pictures. (He's dazed and out of it, and I think just assumes this is the new activity.)  
  
Haymitch takes my hand. "Effie, you… "  
  
"My job is to keep District Twelve out of trouble," I tell him. "I thought you could use a little distraction."  
  
He pulls me to him and hugs me. "You're kind of amazing," he says.  
  
"I'm scared to death," I whisper.  
  
"That's why you're amazing."  
  
The Peacekeepers don't come right away. I have no idea where they look first, and I don't care. The victors all maintain a manic act, pretending to be fascinated by the statuary, then playing at the beach. Johanna and Finnick jump in the water and push big fans of it at each other. Mags keeps an eye on them like a watchful mother hen. She tells me that Finnick was always an only child, and is now enjoying having a spoiled little sister. She also tells me that he's worried sick about Annie, but we don't get into that too deeply. Worry isn't supposed to be in the picture we're painting.  
  
Haymitch spends the day close to me, sometimes with his arm over my shoulders in a protective way, sometimes reaching over to squeeze my hand, but mostly, he's just _close_ , always where he can see me. He's nervous when I go to the ladies' room in the art museum, even though I have a bevy of female victors with me. He reestablishes the sightline as soon as he can, and stays between me and the museum guards while Beetee gives an impromptu lecture about the technology employed in a modern laser sculpture.  
  
We go to the Museum of the Ingathering after the art museum and look at everyone's ostensible ancestors. Haymitch makes a great show of considering buying a war skirt, like his Scottish forefathers wore. He's afraid he doesn't have the knees for it. Finnick pretends to play the Irish harp, and Beetee turns out to be quite independently knowledgeable about the artifacts from India. Johanna doesn't know where her people are from, but decides that she feels Australian, and is most likely descended from a convict shipped there for labor. She picks a random face out of a photograph and declares it her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. "I'll bet she was a murderer like me," she says. "Maybe she even used an axe."

Seeder rolls her eyes and moves us on to another part of the world. She's also in the dark about her ancestry (I've never even particularly wondered about mine), and pricks her finger on a gene sequencer to get an idea. The map lights up all over the place, which is somewhat unhelpful. She suggests that Chaff try it, but he's not interested. I reach out, feeling like a princess in a fairy tale reaching for a spindle, and it tells me that, at some point, my people came from far in the north of Europe.

Johanna and Finnick seem to have almost forgotten that all of this is for show. They both try the sequencer and get mixed results like Seeder's, though Finnick's is much more concentrated around Ireland. They go to all of the stations and start deciding that the artifacts really belong to them. Seeder seems quite fascinated by all of it. It's almost like a real sightseeing trip… except that I don't generally spend my sightseeing time with my knees knocking together and my palms sweating. Haymitch isn't entirely committed to the pretense, either.

The Peacekeepers finally find us at the mutt zoo, where Haymitch is tossing peanuts at golden squirrels and taunting them about not being able to have his tasty earlobe this time. We have pictures to show what we've been doing all day. I tell them everything we have left on our itinerary. They insist on "guarding" us for the rest of the day, what with madmen trying to kill mentors on the loose. It seems to make it harder for everyone to forget that we're trying to keep prying eyes off of them.

Johanna finally complains that it's no fun with chaperones, and Finnick makes a bawdy joke about it. We head back for games Headquarters.

I stop at the gate. Most of them go through, toward their apartments. I lean against the wall and wait for Haymitch, so I can say goodnight.

"What is it?" Haymitch asks.

"Well, I can just go home."

"Effie, I want you to stay."

"I --"

"Effie, come on. Please." He looks at the Peacekeepers, who are only a few feet away. "Do you guys _mind_?" he asks.

They don't move.

"Can we have two seconds of privacy?"

"What for? Making up a good cover story?"

"Yes. I’m trying to get a beautiful woman back to our bugged apartment so that I can tell her my master plan for world domination."

The Peacekeeper rolls his eyes and takes a few steps away, but keeps us in sight.

Haymitch leans in, putting his hands on the wall on either side of me. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I shouldn't do this." He kisses me, leaning in close. I feel his lips against my ear, then he says, "Effie, don't go back to your apartment."

I bury my hands in his hair, kiss his cheek, tug on the earlobe that he denied to the squirrels. "I'm not going to sleep with you for this."

He draws away a little bit, then leans his forehead against mine. He kisses me again. "You don't have to. We can talk. We can play chess. We can watch something ridiculous on television. But don't go back to your place, Effie, please. Stay with me tonight." He comes closer again, and I know that it's not all an act. I know that if I go back to the apartment, we are not going to spend the night playing chess. I can feel him against me, and I want to go back with him. I want to go everywhere with him. He presses his lips against my ear. "We'll get you out of the Capitol."

I pull back, my heart leaping into my throat. I know he means it. I know why he means it, but I think I'm all right. No one saw me. No one has any idea that I went to find him. Leaving the Capitol would mean admitting to something… it would mean hiding. It would mean never seeing him again, like his first escort. It would mean giving up the idea that I would ever be this close to him again.

And I am a Capitol woman. I can no more change that than Haymitch can stop being a victor. To live my life pretending to be something else would be impossible.

Haymitch takes my hand and presses it against his lips. He looks miserable. I kiss him, then duck under his arm and raise my arm for a taxi. As I get in, I look back at him. He's still standing there in the gate, Peacekeepers on either side of him.

I give the taxi driver my address, and he drives me away.

When I get home, I find messages from friends at Capitol dreams, and Barnabas, and even Caesar Flickerman, all telling me that Peacekeepers are trying to get in touch with me. I return the calls. Junius is terribly concerned about me. Caesar tells me to be careful. Barnabas asks if I want to go out and talk about it. I don't.

I take a shower and put on my pajamas, my head wrapped in a large soft towel. I make myself a cup of tea, and cuddle Sweetheart while she purrs and kneads against my chest.

_We'll get you out of the Capitol._

I start to cry.

It's not dramatic. I don't wail and weep. I just sit on my sofa, cuddled up in the corner with my cat, tears sliding down my face. Sweetie licks at them, and bumps her head against my chin until I pull her closer.

I'm not even sure why I'm crying. I'm safe. Haymitch is safe. So are the others. They have a perfectly good excuse for having congregated all day. No one is going anywhere. And if I want to, I know I could get dressed, call a cab, and go back to the Training Center, to Haymitch. I know he wouldn't turn me away tonight. I doubt we'd even waste much time talking about getting me out of the Capitol, or anything else for that matter. And it won't be about covering up clandestine political meetings, either.

 _Where would it_ go, _Euphemia? Do you imagine there would be some long, happily-ever-after life?_

I try to push away the image of Mimi Meadowbrook, lying at the foot of a statue, writing the word "Reaped" on it as her last action in life. It doesn't work. She knew it was impossible. Haymitch knows it, too. And I know it. I could go tonight, but then what?

I feel something sharp, and I realize that I'm squeezing Sweetie tightly enough that she's trying to get away. I let up a bit, and she re-settles in my arms. I carry her back to my room, look at the pictures on my wall. Some are old pictures of me from Capitol Dreams. Some are magazine covers I've done. There's even a picture of me with Haymitch at one function or another -- I can't tell which, but I'm guessing it's one of the post-Games meetings, since Haymitch looks a bit drunk.

I take them all down and put them in a drawer. I try to imagine an Effie who didn't march in parades as a child, an Effie who lives somewhere else, whose life isn't wound up in Haymitch Abernathy's, more tightly with each passing year, to the point where he thinks I need to leave my home… to start over somewhere else, like Pelagia Pepper did.

Maybe I'd be the next one accused of killing someone in a distant district. Would they question Haymitch about it again?

The air conditioning comes on. I feel it play over my skin like cool, comforting fingers. Someone has perfumed the air tonight. There's a high, sweet smell in it. I lean back into my pillows and breathe it in deeply. Sweetie falls asleep against my side.

I stare at the ceiling.

I could go to Haymitch. I want to go to Haymitch, but I know I can't live with it just being tonight. He wants me to leave the Capitol. Maybe we could leave together. Maybe we could both become someone new. I could become a district woman, with a new name. Maybe we could go to District Seven, where it would be easy to get lost in the constant migration from camp to camp. We could see Johanna and Jack sometimes. Haymitch could put his restless mind to work solving survival problems again. We could…

But I can't picture it. Not really. My face is unremarkable when I'm not made up, and maybe I could pass, but Haymitch is a victor, and has been on television all over the country for two decades. He'd have to have extensive reconstructive surgery to disappear, and that can only be done in the Capitol, which would make the whole issue moot.

I could go alone. Find my place among the lumberjacks, or maybe working in the smelly paper mill. Or I could go to District Ten, and learn to ride a horse. I could divorce myself from Haymitch's life, and let him go his way, while I go mine. We've had a good, long contract together. Nothing lasts forever.

The sweet perfume from the air filters is making me foggy. The lines on the ceiling seem to bend.

I could just stay here. Nothing really happened. I don't need to do anything. I can love Haymitch until I die, and nothing will ever come of it, not really. So why not just let it be?

Somewhere in my cloudy head, I hear a faint humming sound. My hands and feet feel very heavy. I look up at the vent. There's a faint, misty substance now.

I should panic. But my heart has slowed too much for it. Sweetie is breathing slowly beside me, her head pushed under the covers. If there's poison, it could kill her a long time before it hurts me. I should open a window.

I try to sit up, but my body doesn't move. I think as hard as I can about pushing myself up, but my arms don't respond. My legs seem to be sinking into my mattress.

I am breathing in slow, shallow gasps. Above me, the lights on my ceiling seem to expand and contract with my pulse. The edges of the room grow dim, the shadows closing in around me. I feel the warmth of the cat beside me, but it is only us in the world.

Then the shadows advance, close the loop around us, and I know no more.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Effie is brought in for re-education... and it takes.

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**  
I dream.  
  
Sometimes the dreams are very clear. I am on Erastus's planet again, watching its mirror world closing in. The pull of the body's gravity makes me euphoric. I am in the crowd at the reaping, and I call my own name -- Euphemia Trinket. I try to say that I'm Effie, but no one listens. I am in the forest with Johanna, plague sores all over me, trying to explain to River that I’m dying, but he doesn't understand me. Johanna asks if I want her to speed it up, and promises that I can be buried in her fringed dress. And of course, there's Haymitch, always, in each dream. He holds me down against the gravitational pull of the planet above. He watches me from the reaping stage. He sends me gifts in the arena. And of course, there are the other sorts of dreams, which don't mean much.  
  
Mostly, though, I have drifting dreams. I am on a boat, then in the sky, then caught on a river. I see colors. I feel Haymitch's hands on me. I smell a field of fresh grass. I am lost in the smoke outside the mines. These dreams have no plot, no reason to them. I just feel.  
  
After a while, I wake up.  
  
I'm in a clean room with soft lighting and cheerful paintings on the wall. Sunlight catches little prisms that hang on the ceiling. There's a sitting area with a table set up. The television is on. It's playing a musical. I don't recognize it right away, but at the moment, a woman in a silver wig is dancing manically in City Center.  
  
"Hello, Euphemia."  
  
I turn my head.  
  
There's a young man sitting beside my bed. He looks vaguely familiar. He has large hazel eyes, and curly, reddish brown hair, which he wears naturally, just like Mimi Meadowbrook used to. I blink. That's who he reminds me of. In fact, there's a picture of her on the nightstand on that side of the bed and looking between him and it, I can see a very pronounced resemblance. I think I talked to him once after her death, when I was trying to hold onto the house.  
  
He smiles. "My name is Pertinax," he says. "Pertinax Meadowbrook."  
  
I search my memories, and find Mimi's nickname for him. "Naxie?"  
  
"Yeah. That's what my sister called me. But here, I'm Doctor Meadowbrook. It's not a big deal to me, but you know bosses… they like things a certain way."  
  
"Dr. Meadowbrook," I try. "All right. Am I sick? I fell asleep in my bed and…" I am suddenly awake. "Where's my cat? There was something… poison…"  
  
"Your cat's fine. She's right there, see?" He points to a bit of white fluff at the end of the bed. Sweetie looks up sleepily. "What were you using, Euphemia?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, there was obviously something airborne -- an incense, maybe? -- and both of you had passed out. It looks like it was some kind of mild sedative."  
  
"I wasn't using anything. It came through my vents."  
  
"Now, Euphemia, there was no one else there, and no one else in your building was sick. Were you having trouble sleeping?"  
  
"Who found me? Was it Haymitch?"  
  
"It was Caesar Flickerman. You missed an escorts' meeting, and he was concerned. He wanted to take you home, but when we examined your recent behavior -- in addition to this business -- we thought you might need more help than he's able to give you."  
  
"Help…?"  
  
Dr. Meadowbrook leans forward. "We think you may be ill, Euphemia. I watched my sister go through the same thing. We call it entafaistic syndrome -- it's from an old language called Greek. The word means 'interment' or 'burial'… it's a tendency to bury oneself in the needs of others. I can give you statistics and definitions if you want me to. It's more common among women, particularly those who've separated themselves from healthy adult relationships. They tend to attach themselves in inappropriate ways -- "  
  
"You're talking about Haymitch, aren't you?"  
  
"In a theoretical way," he says gently. "I know he's a fine man, in his way. He's certainly been concerned about you."  
  
"Has he been to see me?"  
  
"No." Dr. Meadowbrook sighs. "He's called every day, but we feel that, if you're going to get well, it's best if you don't see him until you're less vulnerable. You've even been excused from mandatory viewing for the closing events."  
  
"Annie," I say. "Is Annie any better? Is she ready to do the events?"  
  
"As I understand it, she's doing quite well, and will be viewing the final cut tomorrow afternoon. But that's not anything you need to worry about, Euphemia."  
  
"It's Effie," I say.  
  
"Because that's what Haymitch Abernathy calls you?"  
  
"He calls me that because he knows my name."  
  
"And yet, when you started your job, you had chosen another." I don't answer. He shakes his head. "Never mind. We'll let it go. Effie, if you like that better. The point is, you went to a former stylist three days ago and frantically asked her to create a look for you, then joined several district malcontents for what appeared to be a casual day of sightseeing. Why were you frantic?"  
  
"Philippa talked to you?"  
  
"The day after we brought you in, I retraced your steps. She seemed to think you might have been taking some sort of controlled substance. Given your friendship with a known addict --"  
  
"I wasn't taking anything. I just realized that I was late, and I couldn't remember where we were meeting."  
  
"And you ran out without even a wig? Emiliana told me once that she was actually concerned about your refusal to go without a wig. She thought something might have happened to you." He smiles fondly. "Of course, my sister never could resist getting caught up in other people's lives. We steered her to Capitol Dreams, so she could use that to help out without becoming too invested in any one person. She still seems to have been fond of you. I suppose that's why she left you this house." I must look surprised, because he smiles more broadly. "Yes, when you sold it, I wanted to buy it myself, of course, but I couldn't afford it any more than you could. I'm afraid neither of us has the resources of a well-regarded actress. But Capitol Dreams bought it. We've made it into a shelter for people who need help, like you do. I think my sister would like that." He looks out the window toward the garden where she died.  
  
"You were close?"  
  
He blinks, then looks back at me and smiles ruefully. "Yes. We were twins. Of course, the doctors told my mother that she should discontinue one of the fetuses -- it's not healthy to have children so close together that they have to compete for parental resources -- but she had a soft spot, just like Emiliana did. I suppose this sort of thing runs in the family. Emiliana almost… well, she found things difficult." He breaks his nostalgic mood and smiles. "But that's in the past. We're here to get you facing forward again! You've been feeling alone here in the Capitol, haven't you?"  
  
"Sometimes…"  
  
"But you're not. Effie, there are people here who love you… and wouldn't put you at risk for anything."  
  
"Haymitch didn't -- "  
  
"Oh, not deliberately, of course! He can't help it. Their lives are difficult in the districts, and I suppose he thinks it's normal to be miserable. I wish we could help all of them, too. I really do. If I could set up a clinic in every district to help people find peace, I would. But I'm only one man. So I'm going to settle for helping _you_ now. Why don't you get dressed, then come downstairs with me? You'll find a lot of your friends, who've been very eager to see you again."  
  
"I want to talk to Haymitch."  
  
"Later, Effie. When you're stronger."  
  
"He's my friend. He doesn't make me weak."  
  
Dr. Meadowbrook smiles in an understanding way. "I think we both know that he's not just your friend, and that he very much makes you weak. Not deliberately, of course! But he's a thunderstorm of a person, Effie. I remember when Emiliana and I were little, our mother used to tell us to come in out of the rain before we caught our deaths of cold. Let's at least get you an umbrella before you go out in the storm again."  
  
I don't cooperate with him the first day. I keep asking for Haymitch. I'm finally allowed to call him on the telephone, though not with a video feed. He sounds worried about me. They told him I passed out from exhaustion and stress. He asks where I am and says they haven't told him. Dr. Meadowbrook says, "We've been over this, Haymitch," and doesn’t give me a chance to answer. He hangs up.  
  
The next day, the victors have to leave the Capitol, and there's no point to asking for Haymitch anymore. I still stay in my room. I ask for a book. They give me a new biography of Arcadia Givens, a model who did a tell-all interview about the men she's slept with. I ask for Erastus's book, but Dr. Meadowbrook says that I don't need to read something so dismaying. He asks me why I want it, and we talk about it for a while. I don't know why I want it. He's right -- it's a very strange kind of escapist fantasy, that doesn't even really give an escape. He suggests that I turn my eye back to the real world.  
  
I can't at first. I still dream too vividly. They're concerned about it, and put me back on Pherolen. I start to feel better. Since I took Sweetie in from outside, Dr. Meadowbrook suggests that I might like to work in a Capitol Dreams animal shelter to get used to the world again. It's fulfilling work, and it's good to go in every day and take care of the poor, helpless little things. They're often starving and sick, and I help make them well, and get them cleaned up to find new homes if they can. I ask once what happens if no one takes them, but no one seems to know. It doesn't matter. I find homes for all of them that I can. Quite a few of our sponsors like the idea of having a companion.  
  
There's a group session every day at the shelter. I am quiet at first as I listen to the troubles people have gotten themselves into. Pulcheria Downs was caught stealing from a grocer because she got tied up with a group of ne'er do wells who live near the railroad tracks. Lupicina Bickel nearly starved herself trying to hold onto her children, even though there were services happy to take care of them for her at no cost. Eudokia Laird made herself miserable trying to get her husband to renew a marriage contract that he had no interest in, and ended up screaming and weeping on the street outside his new house. There's one man in the group, Gratian Quick, who was a teacher in the practical school. One of his students had wanted to go to the university, and he got so involved in her fight that he ended up losing his job amid accusations of an inappropriate relationship with her. All of them have lost more than I did -- Dr. Meadowbrook even assures me that they're keeping up my apartment, and once I'm well, I'll be able to go back to work, provided Haymitch doesn't ask for a new escort.  
  
"I'm sorry to say it," Dr. Meadowbrook tells me, "but he almost certainly will. It's your very sickness that made him consider you a valuable employee."  
  
"No. Haymitch needs me."  
  
"I hope you're right. Well, in some ways, I hope you're right. I don't want to see you hurt or disappointed in your friend. In other ways, though, I think the best thing he could do for you is show you to the door and never call you again. Until he did that for Emiliana, I think she continued to entertain the notion that she could wrap herself up in his life again. I imagine it's a comfortable place to be, always needed to take care of some crisis. But she never would have found herself, being so pulled into district pathologies."  
  
Gratian organizes a birthday party for me, for what everyone calls the first of many twenty-ninth birthdays. There are balloons and cakes and, quite honestly, enough drinks to keep even Haymitch happy, though he really only goes for sweet cocktails if they're the only thing being served. There's a good amount of playful sex going on as well -- I'd forgotten how much of it there was at Capitol Dreams, after years of working only in one of the more prudish districts. I don't participate in it. I don't think I'm ready for that. At our session two days later, Dr. Meadowbrook tells me that he thinks I should have, and encourages me to start looking for adult companionship. "It's part of the problem," he says. "You've been spending time with someone who has a very unrealistic notion of sex, and you've forgotten what it's really about -- having fun! Go find someone to have fun with you."  
  
I go out to the clubs with Eudokia a week later, and we let ourselves be picked up by a couple of men. I feel myself panicking, and I take an extra dose of Pherolen before we go back to their place. It levels me out, and we end up having some fun, though, as usual, the next day, I'm told that I need to loosen up more and try more adventurous things. I'm used to this. Dr. Meadowbrook shrugs it off and tells me that, given my condition, I was pretty adventurous to do it at all, and I shouldn't worry about morning-after reviews. I don't tell him about the extra pill, and a week later, I tell him that I dropped a few down the sink. He gives me an extra prescription without asking any more questions. I don't overdose on them. I just take them when I need a little extra courage.  
  
I call Caesar Flickerman in December. He tells me that he hasn't heard anything from Haymitch since the end of the games, but will arrange for him to get passage to the Capitol in April, before the reaping, so we can all discuss it. Dr. Meadowbrook promises to get me strong enough to handle it by then. He also says he'd like to be there, but Caesar forbids it.  
  
I'm not allowed to go to Annie Cresta's Victory Tour party. Dr. Meadowbrook still doesn't think I should be that close to the victors, even though I tell him that Finnick and I are old friends. I'm allowed to watch on television. Annie seems nervous, and clings to Finnick's arm. Finnick leans over and speaks to her softly. I wonder if they're in love, but I suppose I'm wrong -- he's out the next night with Jovian Manders, a good-looking man who sits on the president's council. I guess if Finnick is still playing around, there's nothing serious going on.  
  
Not long after Annie leaves, people are allowed to come ask me questions. Some of the Games authorities ask me why I went running to Haymitch and the others. I try to answer, but it all starts to seem silly when I describe it. I suppose if they had been doing anything troublesome, they wouldn't have let me take them sightseeing, after all. I'm asked a lot of questions about what I might have overheard before I got there, though I'm not sure what that has to do with my entafaism. I've read a lot about it now, in Dr. Meadowbrook's books, one of which is dedicated to Mimi, who inspired him to learn everything he could about the disorder. He insists that the entafaistic's particular fixation -- a friend, a lover, a child, even a pet -- isn't important. I tell him that the authorities have been asking. He rolls his eyes and says that they don't understand the root of the problem, or they wouldn't assume I had any political knowledge. He talks to them, and they stop asking.  
  
Finally, they ask me if I'm loyal to the Capitol or to Haymitch. After all, he's suspected to be a traitor, and treason is infectious. I assure them that I'm a Capitol woman. I remember Haymitch telling me that he'd get me out of the Capitol. I remember thinking about it, and imagining it. But I can't really connect to the state of mind I must have been in then. I decide not to mention it. I also tell them that Haymitch is a loyal citizen. He fought off the raiders who invaded the tribute train, and promised that he'd never let anyone hurt me.  
  
Dr. Meadowbrook says that this was right to tell strangers, but reminds me that I need to keep in mind that Haymitch _did_ threaten to send the children out, and that, as a district man, he'll never care as much about me as he does about politics. It's like a disease there. He's not really capable of putting a human being first. He tells me to remember Mimi.  
  
I start spending time with other Games workers. Therinus is already working on costumes for next year. The escorts are planning a pre-reaping party, which Barnabas tells me they have every year, but they never thought I'd be interested before. I go with the other female escorts to this year's fashion show. Shiny is in this year, as is pink. We get our nails done together, and complain about our stylists (they've gotten quite pushy lately, and want to override escorts on costume choices). We speculate about the arena and what kinds of mutts there will be. It's like being in lower school. I feel like I'm a child again, getting ready for something exciting.  
  
I try not to think about Dr. Meadowbrook's warning that Haymitch might not want me back, though I frequently dream that he fires me, and I lose my apartment and all of my things. Haymitch personally takes the cat in most of these dreams and tells me I'm not fit to take care of things when I'm like this. I beg him to tell me what he means, and he takes me to a mirror, where I see that I've become a circus clown.  
  
I go back to my apartment in February, though I have to come to group four times a week to make sure I'm not sliding back into old habits. Friends from the shelter and the animal rescue and Capitol Dreams make a habit of dropping in on me. I fall into an affair with a veterinarian named Tiberius Hurd. Dr. Meadowbrook is glad to see me relating to another adult in a healthy way, and says he thinks I'm ready to see Haymitch again.  
  
I am feeling immeasurably better by the time April comes. Haymitch arrives on a train, but I don't go to meet him. I have an appointment to get my nails done, and I have very strict instructions not to change my routine for him. My room back at the shelter is ready in case I have a relapse, but I'd prefer to stay in my apartment.  
  
I go to Caesar's office.  
  
I get there early, but apparently Caesar picked Haymitch up at the station, because I can hear them as I enter the outer office. I pause.  
  
"…still the same woman who's been your good right hand in the Capitol for the last eleven years," Caesar is saying.  
  
" _Is_ she?" A chair is shoved -- I hear it scrape across the floor -- and I imagine Haymitch standing up, his fingers laced behind his neck. "Caesar, how bad is it? How badly have they broken her?"  
  
"I don't think she's _broken_ , Haymitch."  
  
"Then how much did they empty out of her? What's left of Effie, Caesar? Is she like Mimi?"  
  
There's a pause, then Caesar says, "When I've spoken to her, she's been alert and aware, and still devoted to helping District Twelve. Still _kind_."  
  
"Kind," Haymitch echoes. He sounds like he's lost in the dark somewhere. I wish I could just get him some serious time with someone who could help.  
  
"And I know she doesn't want to leave. Her job means a lot to her."  
  
"Do the tributes still mean a lot to her? Or are they just game pieces now?" Haymitch laughs wildly then says, nonsensically, "Does she love Big Brother?"  
  
"Who is Big Brother?" I ask, coming into the room. Haymitch looks up in surprise, then clear dismay. "Are you Big Brother?"  
  
He laughs again. It's neither friendly nor cruel. It doesn't seem directed at me at all. It's a kind of raving, lunatic laugh. "Am I? I don't know. You tell me, Effie. Who am I to you right now?"  
  
"You're my boss," I say. "At least you were before."  
  
"Your boss," he says, and goes to the window. He presses his forehead and hands against the glass and looks out over the Capitol. "I'm your boss."  
  
I bite my lip. "I'd like it to stay that way. I want to help make District Twelve into the champions I know they are."  
  
On the window, his hands bend into claws, and he leans further forward, rocking his shoulders in and out, not looking at me. I don't know what someone's been telling him -- he looks like he's lost his last friend. "Champions. Oh, Effie."  
  
"I know they have it in them. I want to be part of it. I'm still your friend. I can help you!"  
  
He takes in several harsh, sharp breaths, but doesn't say anything. I don't understand why he's acting like this.  
  
I look at Caesar. "All I did was get well. I was sick before! I haven't changed." I turn back to the window. "Haymitch, look at me! It's just Effie. Only well now. I wish I could help you be well, too."  
  
He slams his fists against the window.  
  
I go to him and touch his arm. He seems much further away than he does in my dreams. "Don't you understand? You could be _happy_."  
  
He finally turns around. His face is contorted in grief, like I'm horribly dead instead of standing right in front of him. His eyes search mine, then close. He kisses my forehead, then holds me very tight.  
  
I return his embrace. "You see, Haymitch? You could be happy. I could make you happy."  
  
He pulls away and tries to look at me, but his eyes don't meet mine again. He moves me gently to one side and heads for the door.  
  
"Haymitch," Caesar says.  
  
He stops but doesn't turn around. "What?"  
  
"You're doing what the Gamemakers want you to. You're letting them run you like a puppet."  
  
"We all end up doing that."  
  
"Haymitch, _think_." I open my mouth to speak, but Caesar holds his hand up and gives me a sharp look. He gets to his feet and speaks to Haymitch in quiet, even tones, so unlike his stage personality that it's hard to believe they're the same man. "What do you tell your tributes every year, Haymitch? What do you tell them about the temptations the Gamemakers put up?"  
  
Haymitch is standing in the door. I can see his muscles twitching like he wants to leave, but he puts one hand on either side of the frame, holding himself physically in the room. "Don't try the Cornucopia," he says weakly.  
  
"Exactly. And you're running at it full tilt right now. They're not trying to kill you, but they're damned well trying to destroy you. Trying to make you hurt yourself this time."  
  
His hands grip the sides of the door, like something outside is pulling on him brutally.  
  
Then he relaxes. It's a deliberate thing, almost going one muscle at a time. He takes deep, slow breaths. Finally, he lets go of the door. He stands without saying anything for what seems a long time, then turns toward me. His eyes flicker up briefly, but he doesn't really look at me.  
  
"I heard -- " he starts, but his voice breaks. He forces himself under control. "I heard the stylists are making a power grab. Keep Therinus under wraps, okay, Effie? And I heard a rumor that Cinna Barrett is next in line if anyone retires. See if you can… if you can make friends with him. So he'll pick Twelve."  
  
"I can stay then? I want to stay."  
  
He closes his eyes and whispers, "I want you to stay." He turns and leaves, walking like someone has punched him in the gut. His hands even go to the spot where he had an axe wound so long ago. I try to follow, but Caesar holds me back.  
  
He doesn't stop at the apartment or anywhere else I can find him. After a while, I realize that I'm verging on a relapse with all the searching. I take a pill and go to a club instead of looking any further. The next day at our group session, I get a round of applause for taking on the urge to bury myself and beating it in a fair fight.  
  
Dr. Meadowbrook clears me to go back to work, just in time to really get started for the reaping. I'm determined to be the best escort in the field, so Haymitch knows he made the right choice. I gather up a lot of new sponsors, now that I'm better connected, and I tell Therinus that he simply _must_ make a better impression at the parade. I visit Cinna and his new apprentice, the scholarship winner named Portia, who's doing strange experiments with fabrics. We have several very nice lunches together. He even finds some dresses in his repertoire that I don't feel uncomfortable wearing.  
  
When I get to District Twelve for the Seventy-First reaping, Haymitch is drunk. He tries to throw his arms around me and kiss me, but he smells like he hasn't bathed in weeks and I push him away. He mutters something about remembering that I'm well now. He makes the word "well" sound like a deadly disease.  
  
I call Hank MacCailin and Fancy Tantridge that year. Haymitch and I work together as well as ever getting them prepped, though he seems unable to stand the sight of me. None of it matters. They both fall at the Cornucopia, against his standing orders. It's actually merciful. The whole arena is an ice field, and most of the tributes slowly freeze to death. The inner district alliance huddles together until everyone else is dead, then they kill each other in a teeth-chattering melee, won by Otho Magro of District Two. No one is impressed with the Games, and during the year, the Head Gamemaker is replaced. A young man named Seneca Crane is appointed to the post.  
  
I turn thirty. My friends throw me a party at the lake shore that lasts three days. I wake up in bed with three other people at the end of it, and I'm not altogether sure how I got there, or if anything happened.  
  
Being back with Capitol Dreams, I'm invited to the Victory Tour party. Otho is quite charming. I mention this to a woman named Vibia Lee, who sits on the security council. She tells me that if I talk to President Snow, I might be able to arrange to know him _much_ better. She plans to. I gather that she doesn't intend to have an extended conversation with him. I decide that I'm not interested.  
  
The next spring, I call Forrest Collet and Plonia Fisher for the Seventy-Second Games. They're both hostile to me from the moment I get on the train. Haymitch leaves me on my own for this, as he's drunk again. He's decided not to sober up until they actually get to the Capitol. He shuts the door of his sleeping car, and, though I know he talks to the tributes later because they mention it the next day (Plonia gripes that Haymitch is going to make them master my manners lessons), he doesn't talk to me. Despite Haymitch's instructions, neither one of them will listen to me, and they're caught on camera shoveling food into their mouths with their bare, dirty hands. We barely get them our usual sponsors, let alone anyone new. Forrest dies at the Cornucopia anyway.  
  
Plonia makes it for a week, wending her way alone through the arena, which this year is earthquake prone. She's finally caught by the District Six tribute, Titus, and killed with a quick blow to the throat. Anything she did to disgust sponsors is quickly forgotten when Titus eats her fingers from her hand. He'd go further, but the hovercraft blasts him away from the body. They finally have to bury him in a landslide to stop him from becoming a victor, and stop the entire viewing audience from losing its appetite. The boy from One, Ravish, wins after a fight with the boy from Nine.  
  
I go to see Haymitch at the train. For some reason, he's bandaged up Plonia's hand, even though it's far too late for it to make any difference. He's been drunk since he finished the call to her parents, and is short-tempered with me. I ask Caesar about a transfer, but again, no one is leaving. He reminds me that I asked to stay. I don't remember why.  
  
I make the cover of _Capitol Couture_ twice, and am voted "Most Intriguing Hunger Games Personality." This gets me a lot of interviews. The most influential is in _Game Sponsor Quarterly_ , since it goes out to the really heavy hitters. Unfortunately, they want to know why Twelve's tributes are always so uncouth, and I can't provide any answer, though I promise I'll try harder to teach the next pair.  
  
Unfortunately, the next pair, for the Seventy-Third Games, is Teasel Hughes and Marigold Smore, and they can't even conceive of needing to learn to use silverware or a napkin. They wipe their hands on the tablecloth on the train and -- worse -- in the Training Center. I try to tell Haymitch that they need to learn. He's surly with me, and gripes that they're hungry and they don't care.  
  
"The whole point is for them to win, so they'll actually _have_ something to eat, like you do. Maybe not be hungry anymore! Is using a fork _really_ too much to ask?" I roll my eyes. "Really, Haymitch, there's no reason not to have manners. Manners are free!"  
  
He turns away from me, goes into his room, and slams the door. He must tell them later to listen, because Goldie gives me a canned apology and Teasel makes a good faith effort with a fish knife, but it's too late to do any good with the sponsors.  
  
Before the interviews, Goldie uses the corner of a silk blouse to wipe her nose after sneezing. She goes out on stage with the mess perfectly visible, though Caesar stands carefully in front of her so it can't be seen during her spot. Teasel won't be talked out of his atrocious grammar, and actually swears on camera, causing his interview time to be cut short by nearly ten seconds.  
  
The sponsors don't matter in the end, because they don't listen to Haymitch any more than they listened to me. They rush the Cornucopia, and die there. District Two gets another victory, with Livius Frango.  
  
Haymitch leaves without saying goodbye to me.  
  
I go on.  
  
Cinna Barrett teaches a class on fashion history and I take it. He's a kind man, and he seems to love his work. I meet him at his studio a few times to talk about interesting topics he's brought up.  
  
In December, Tigress is asked to leave the stylist pool. She has gone under the knife so often that she's become grotesque in her attempts to live up to her name. She's actually had them split her upper lip. No one wants to see her on camera anymore.  
  
The stylist spot opens. I call Merle in Twelve, and he has Haymitch come into town to call me back. I'm to get Cinna, no matter what. I ask if he'll talk to me again if I do.  
  
"It's not that," he says.  
  
"What, then?"  
  
"You haven't figured that out?" he slurs. I thought at first that he was sober, but it's becoming increasingly clear that he's not. "I'm an idiot," he tells me. "Come on, Effie. You know that."  
  
I hang up, annoyed at him for reasons I can't even pin down. I go to Cinna and tell him that District Twelve is just brimming with untapped potential, and a brilliant stylist could finally catch people's eyes, since it's been so long since we've had a victor. He agrees. When he's named the new stylist, he shocks everyone by choosing us. I barely listen to the bidding afterward. Therinus, I think, ends up in District Six.  
  
Haymitch is actually a little bit pleased with me when I call. He says, "That's my girl," anyway. Then he hangs up and doesn't call again.  
  
I ask Caesar again about a transfer, since Haymitch doesn't seem to want me anymore, but there's still nowhere to go.  
  
"Besides," he tells me, "if Haymitch ever really didn't want you, he'd ask me to remove you. He hasn't done that, I promise."  
  
"But he shuts me out. He slams doors on me."  
  
Caesar stares at a pen in his hands, then says, "Effie, Haymitch knows who you are. The fact that he makes sure he never loses his temper at you, that he's keeping you with him -- that means a lot more than you're giving it credit for. Probably more than _he_ gives it credit for. He's giving you the best he can. Please try to do the same."  
  
I nod. I will, of course. It's my job. I expect that I'll keep giving Haymitch the best I can for as long as he'll let me, no matter how many doors he slams. I don't anticipate anything changing. He has his world, and I have mine.  
  
As far as I know, those worlds will go on forever, circling each other like the binary planets in Erastus's book, locked in a tidal stare, with nothing short of a catastrophic asteroid hit to move them.  
  
The next spring, I reap Primrose Everdeen.

**The End**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, there's more story coming. Haymitch will pick up next with the last re-telling from canon -- both the last of this series, and the first of "Narrow Path."


End file.
